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MARTYRIA 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



AUGUSTUS C. HAMLIX, 

LATE MEDICAL IXSPECTOll U. S. AllMY, KOYAL AKTIQLAKIAX, ETC. 



Illustrated by the Aitthor. 




BOSTON : 

LEE AND SHEPARD 

1866. 



Entererl, acconling to Act of Congress, in the year iS66. by 

A. C. HAMLIN, 

lu the Clerk's Office of the District Conrt of the District of Maine. 






D A K I N A K D M E T C A L F. 

STEREOTTPKD AT THE 
! O S T O N S T E H K O T V P E F O U N D R Y, 



■ / 



TO THE 

MEMORY OF THE MEN 

VTRO STEADILY UPHELD THE CAUSE OF CIVIL LIBERTY, 

AND 

WHO PREFERRED LINGERDsG DEATH, 

IN THE MEDST OF UNPARALLELED PRIVATIONS 
AND HORRORS, 

RATHER THAN DISHONOR 

AND DENIAX OF THEIR BIRTHRIGHTS, 

THIS BOOK 
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 



NOTE 



THE author presents for review neither style nor 
hmguage : he offers simply the story of the wrong 
and the heroism, the cause and etlect, as it rises in his 
mind. 

Neither does he, at this late date, seek to rekindle 
the smouldering embers of hate and conflict, nor, 
Antony-like, attack persons under the recital of the 
wrongs. Vengeance does not belong to the human 
race. There are times in the history of men when 
human invectives are without force. " There are deeds 
of which men are no judges, and which mount, with- 
out appeal, direct to the tribunal of God." 

Augustus Choate Hamlin. 

Bangor, September, 1866. 

(5) 



MARTYRIA. 




'^^y^^f^'^^^'l „^, \'^W ''Z^^'^ ' 



" They never fail who die 

In a great cause. * * * * 

They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 

Which overpower all others, and conduct 

The world at last to freedom." 

Byron, 



HISTORY weighs the social institutions of men in 
the scale of Humanity. Time, slowly but surely, 
accumulates the evidence which relates to their materi- 
als. It calmly but firmly tniveils the statues which men 
erect as their principles, and with " that retributive justice 
which God has implanted in our very acts, as a con- 
science more sacred than the fatalism of the ancients," 

(7) 



8 MARTYRIA, OR 

la3^s bare the secret s^^rings of action which have 
jDrompted the deeds of heroism or baseness, of virtue 
or crime. 

Nations arc pohtical institutions, and lilvc the system 
of nature, which is governed by positive and fixed laws, 
so they lilvewise are swayed and directed by mysterio^us 
forces, and influenced and moulded into form by th6.se 
external circumstances which are greatly within the con- 
trol of man. Their rise and decadence is in direct ratio 
to the nature and integrity of their customs, the structtn*e 
of their social fabrics, the vigor of the spirit of inde^eur 
dence which animates their thoughts, or the strengt 



the despotism which consumes their vitals. " Libe^^, '-; 
brings benedictions in spite of nature, and in defiance of''- 
the same nature tyranny brings maledictions. Slavery 
has always produced only villany, vice, and misery." 

Men cannot perpetuate a creed or a system that is not 
founded ou the eternal principles of justice and virtue, no 
more than they can control the elements — no more than 
they can remove or obliterate those geographical bounda- 
ries, beyond which the human races cannot jDass in pur- 
suit of the forms of wealth or the dreams of ambition. 

The Belgian; who has studied so long and so faithfully 
the laws of metaphysics, exclaims, " All those things 
which appear to be left to the free will, the passions, or 
the degree of intelligence of men, are regulated by laws 
as fixed, immutable, and eternal as those which govern 
the phenomena of the natural world ! " 



ANDERSONVII.LE PRISON. 



Along the southern tier of the great States which 
form the American RepubHc, whose gigantic structure 
and ahnost supernatural vigor already overshadow and 
animate the older civilizations of the world, we observe 
vast extents of level and alluvial lands and deltas, or 
" rather a series of littoral bands of remarkable dispo- 
sition," which the ocean left when receding from the 
mountain shores of the interior to its present limits, or 
which slowly and gradually emerged from their watery 
bed in the upheavals during the long intervals of the 
earth's ages. 

This immense territory, stretching from the Potomac 
to the Rio Grande, and hardly broken throughout this 
long distance by undulations of the soil, embraces more 
than six hundred thousand square miles — an extent 
greater than that of France and the States of the Ger- 
manic Confederation combined. Eight millions of hu- 
man souls inhabit the one, whilst one hundred millions 
people the other. Ignorance and brutality darken the 
one, intelligence and humanity illuminate the other. 



The proximity of the sea, the configuration of the 
soil, the presence or absence of mountains, affect the 
growth and character of nations, and leave their im- 
press upon their institutions. Climate and purity of 
blood complete the determination In the problem of life, 
the progress and degree of development. Upon these 
I* 



lO MARTYRIA, OR 

external causes also depend, in a great measure, the 
vigor of the imagination, the sentiment of the grand 
and the beautiful, the vivacity and purity of the soul. 

The cold breezes of tlie temperate zones conduce men 
to wisdom, reason, and philosophy. The enervating at- 
mospheres of hot climes incline the mind and body to 
repose, and often pervert the notions of natural justice. 
In the one, the mind is ever delighted and refreshed by 
the varying scenes of nature ; in the other, the forms 
of the mournful and the terrible alone excite the im- 
agination. 

IV. 

We have seen these lands occupied for more than two 
centuries by the emigrants from European countries ; 
we have seen the reckless adventurer, the noble exile, 
the fugitive from justice, the outcast of society, blended 
together here in the experiment of colonization. 

The form is still the same, for form is always more 
persistent than material in organic life, but the sterling 
and generous qualities of the primitive stock have greatly 
changed. 

We have seen in these lands Slavery — that relic of 
barbarism, that leprosy, the foulest that ever preyed 
upon the vitals of any state — transplanted by that ac- 
cursed Dutch ship, under the guise of Humanity, flourish, 
increase, and assume, during this brief period, the pro- 
portions of a despotism so powerful, so tenacious, as to 
defy and resist, almost successfully, the entire strength 
and resources of the Republic, enriching the slave fac- 
tion with enormous wealth, but debasing and deterio- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. II 

rating the morals, the blood of the poor and non-slave- 
holding whites. 

This increase of three millions of black men were 
held in bondage as human cattle by a few thousand 
white men. To these unfortunate creatures society 
extended no generosity, no consideration, but what re- 
duced them still lower in the scale of organized beings, 
and chained them more closely in the sordid and selfish 
interests of their remorseless masters. To teach the 
black man to read, even the light of the divine Gospel, 
was a matter of fine, and imprisonment, and sometimes 
death. 

V. 

Seeking to pei'petuate this atrocious system, this right 
of brute force over the helpless black, and establish a 
despotism with Slaveiy as its basis, the arrogant faction 
boldly took up arms against the Republic. " When 
Fortune," says the Latin historian, " is determined upon 
the ruin of a people, she can so blind them as to render 
them insensible to danger, even of the greatest magni- 
tude." 

Their appeals to arms were in the name of justice and 
glory, but they were without the echo of liberty and 
humanity. They summoned the masses of poor whites, 
whom they had degi'aded below the level of the slave, 
to rise and fight for their liberties, which were as empty 
as the winds of the desert. There were no liberties, 
no privileges for the poor whites, but to curse poverty 
and question God's providence. 

The individual desires of the few had usurped and 



12 MARTYRIA, OR 

swallowed up the rights of society. There was no so- 
ciety but the relation between the black man and his 
master. The law, order, and force were all within the 
control of the rich slaveholder. 

The masses were either their tools, or too abject to 
be considered as dangerous ; too ignorant to be feared 
as seditious, too poor to be regarded as anything more 
than trash, below the level and the value of the negro. 
This condition of the poor whites was the result of 
physical, political, and moral causes, long and silently 
at work. 

VI. 

The jDretence for strife was resistance to oppression, 
and the extension and perfection of liberty to the masses ; 
yet they impelled the people to passion, without mingling 
a single truth with the illusions with which they decorated 
their standards. Whilst they talked of the independent 
spii'it of the new government, and the glory of resisting 
the oppressive policy of the invaders, every act and edict 
gathered closer and stronger the bonds which degraded 
and burdened the poor white. 

The owner of seven slaves was exempt from the hazard 
of battle, but poverty and starvation of family were no 
causes of exemption for the non-slaveholder. 

The real design, concealed by the strife, was the foun- 
dation of an empire of gigantic and seductive form, 
radiant and glittering with the splendid architecture of 
aristocratic sovereignty, but without reason or conscience. 

The resolve was to control the production of the prin- 
cipal staples of industry and trade, and subject the com- 
mercial world to their canrices. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 13 

Thus they preferred the intoxications of conquest, the 
gratifications of lust, to the triumphs of true civiUzation, 
to the congratuhations of a redeemed race. They cared 
not for reputation among the nations of the earth, nor 
immortality, nor renown ; and they neglected or despised 
those happy stars which, now and then, conduct men and 
races to glory. " Glory belongs to the God in heaven ; 
upon the earth it is the lot of virtue, and not of genius — 
of that virtue which is useful, grand, beneficent, brilliant, 
heroic." 



Revolutions almost always spring from the noble and 
generous enthusiasm of youth ; but seditions arise from 
the vulgar and ignoble crowd, or from the outcast few, 
who would, for wealth, sacrifice all that honor and nature 
hold dear ; or for the meaner gratifications of self-aggran- 
dizement, would crumble into dust, and scatter to the 
winds of the earth, the noblest institutions and laws of 
mankind. Who will say that this I'esort to arms was 
an insurrection of justice in favor of the weak, or that 
it was a revolt of nature against tyranny ? 

The agitations of revolutions stir up the innermost 
natures of men, and from the revelations out of the depths 
appear the extreme qualities of the soul, elevated or de- 
based, according to the inspirations from Heaven or the 
influence of a vile cause. 

What rays of intellectual light, what flashes of genuine 
eloquence, burst forth during the tempestuous times of 
this period to illumine their progress or define the glory 
of their future? When the minds and imaginations of 



14 MARTYRIA, OR 

men are moved in civil war, they betray, in spite 
of themselves, the nobility or meanness of their cause. 
Even the ignorant, says Qiiintilian, w^hen moved by the 
violent passions, do not seek for what they are to say. 
It is the soul alone that renders them eloquent. Only 
the hoarse clamors for revenge, or the hollow laugh 
against the remonstrance of humanity, do we hear from 
their tribunals and halls of legislation. Fatuity possessed 
their minds, and rather than not succeed in their designs, 
the leaders would have preferred a dreary solitude to the 
best interests of humanity, or, like Erostratus, they would 
have rather burned down the temple of liberty itself. 

" Pejus deteriusque tj'rannide sive injusto imperio, bellum civile." 



VIII. 

Civil liberty is again triumphant, but at what a sacri- 
fice of human life ! What a deluge of blood has been 
poui'ed over nature's fields, where the contending armies 
have struggled together ! A half a million of lives have 
been yielded up in this the nation's sacrifice. 

" The tree of Liberty," said Barere, " is best watered 
with the blood of tyrants ; " but how few among this 
immense host of victims were the originators of the 
sedition ! The merciless schemers of bloody and cruel 
wars rarely expose their precious lives to the chances 
of combat. 

During the existence of the slave system, and the long 
period of its progress, what has it produced to enrich the 
heritage of the human mind? Where are the holy and 
pure traditions, the bright recollections? 



ANDERSONVIJLLE PRISON. I5 

Neither wisdom nor philosophy has appeared, nor 
those arts which serve to form the " happy genius of 
nations." There are countries where the march of ideas 
is accelerated only by the force of selfish passions ; and 
philanthropy, that true index of civilization, only appears 
when it is required by mercantilism or political ambition. 
The aims and influences of commercial and political life 
can debase and destroy the noblest impulses. " It is a 
grand and beautiful spectacle," exclaims the eloquent 
Rousseau, " to see man issue forth out of nothingness, as 
it were, by his own proper efforts, to dissipate, by the light 
of his reason, the shadows in which nature had enveloped 
him, to elevate himself even above himself, to glance with 
his spirit even into the celestial regions, to pass, with the 
stride of a giant, even as the sun, through the vast ex- 
panse of the universe, and what is still greater and more 
diflScult, to enter one's self, and study there man, and to 
understand his nature, his duties, and his end." 



Civilization claims to introduce the elements of peace, 
happiness, and prosperity into the structure of society, 
and to transform the sword and the spear into the harm- 
less implements of husbandry ; yet with a swifter pace the 
engines of war increase, man thirsts as fiercely for the 
blood of his fellow-man, and the dormant spirit of destruc- 
tion is as ready to illume the torch, as in the I'eckless 
times of past history. Even in this enlightened age we 
are constantly reminded of the truth and force of the 
remark of Hannibal : " No great state can long remain at 



l6 MARTYRIA, OR 

rest. If it has no enemies abroad, it finds them at home ; 
as overgrown bodies seem safe from external injuries, but 
suffer grievous inconveniences from their own strength." 

The motives of self-aggrandizement by force of arms 
appear to be innate in human nature. We see men 
maintaining monstrous ideas. We see great armies sin- 
gularly swayed by single minds, in defiance of truth and 
reason. The soldiers of Catiline fought to the last gasp, 
and pei-ished to a man, embracing the eagle of Marius — 
"Marius, who sprang from the dust the expiring Gracchi 
flung towards heaven," and who first dared attack the 
aristocratic nobility, and defend the down-trodden rights 
of tiie oppressed plebeian. There are mysterious laws, 
which seem to regulate the expansion and the decay of 
the human families. There are unseen forces which now 
and then impel vicious men to their own destruction. 



X. 

Andersonville — a name which has been stamped so 
deeply by cruelty into the pages of American history — 
is one of those miserable little hamlets, of a score of scat- 
tered and dilapidated farm-houses, which relieve the mo- 
notony of the wide and dreary level of sand plains, which, 
covered with immense forests, interspersed with fens, 
marshes, corn and cotton fields, stretch away, in un- 
broken surface, from Macon down to the Florida shores. 
The plantations, which were tilled by slave labor, are 
almost concealed in the recesses of the forests, so thickly 
wooded is the country. Here and there only, where the 
savannas are of unusual fertility, do the cleared lands 



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ANDERSON VILLE PRISON. 1 7 

give a wide and extended view of the landscape, but the 
pi'imeval pines everywhere hide the distant horizon. 

The song of the laborer rarely disturbs the silence, 
which is oppressive. Song is the imjDulsive outburst of 
a heart filled with joy and hope. The slave has neither. 
His voice is the cry of anguish, of a soul burdened and 
crushed, and is more like the moan of the winds than the 
accents of civilized man. 

The physical aspect of the white inhabitant indicates 
the local impressions and inspirations — listless and apa- 
thetic in look, lank and haggard in form. There are 
countries, there are even limited localities, where the 
moral and mental faculties expand in accordance with 
external impressions. The laws of beauty and deformity 
are regulated by the condition and circumstances of the 
outward world to a remarkable degree. 

The landscape, the sunshine, and the luxuriance at 
Corinth and Athens gave rise to the most beautiful 
flowers of art and love, and to that wonderful type of 
human beauty, which the world has since lost ; but the 
rugged and stern defiles of the mountains of Calabria, of 
Albania, and the dreary marsh fens of the Campagna, or 
of the Netherlands, still produce characters that rival in 
ferocity the hyenas of the desert. 

* * * * 

Nature appears to have selected for man the sites 
where are performed the noble acts which charm and 
enlighten the mind, or the dark deeds which cause men 
to ponder and regret the frailty of their organization. 
" It seems that the instincts of war conduct from age to 
age the armies of successive empires to the same rendez- 



iS MARTYRIA, OR 

vous of contest, and that geography ha* laid off in ad- 
vance certain fields of battle, as a sort of arena for these 
great immolations of humanity." " Hungary," said So- 
bieski, " is a clump of earth, which, if squeezed, would 
give out but human blood." The name and look of An- 
dersonville will always be synonymous with and sugges- 
tive of cruelt}'. 



At the distance of eight hundred paces from the rail- 
way which connects the town with Central Georgia on 
the north and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, appears 
the Prison Stockade, which was located by the Winders 
of the Rebel army, at the suggestion of Howell Cobb, 
in 1S63, and occupied for its specific purpose in February, 
1864. 

It is situated about fifty miles south of Macon, and its 
position on the geographical map is defined by longitude 
7° 30' west from Washington, latitude 32° 10' north of the 
equator, corresponding in the western hemisphere to the 
central region of Algiers. 

A dense forest of primeval trees covered the spot which 
was selected by the engineers when they marked out the 
line of the prison. The massive pines were levelled by 
the strong arms of several hundred negro slaves, and 
when their branches were cut away, they were placed 
side by side, standing upright in the deep ditches, which 
were excavated witii ixgularity, and in parallel lines, 
north and south, east and west. Thus were formed 
the boundaries of the palisade, wherein nearly forty 
thousand human beings were to be herded at one time. 



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ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I9 

The surface of the earth was cleared completely away, so 
as to give full play to the elements of destruction. 

Neither shade nor shelter was there to protect from the 
storm, or from the merciless rays of an almost tropical 
sun. Not a tree nor a shrub was left there to cast a 
fihadow over the arid and calcined earth. There was 
simply a rampart of logs, rising from fifteen to eighteen 
feet in height above the surface of the ground. This 
rampart measured at first ten hundred and ten feet in 
length by seven hundred and seventy-nine feet in width, 
and was surrounded, at a distance of sixty paces, by 
another palisade of rough logs more than twelve feet in 
height. It was afterwards lengthened, in the autumn of 
1864, to sixteen hundred and twenty feet. 

This enormous structure still stands there, with its 
giant walls of trees, undisturbed. 

* * * " May none those marks efface, 
For they appeal from tyranny to God," 



XII. 

A small stream of water, which arose in two branches 
scarcely a thousand paces distant, in bogs and fens whose 
bitterness and impurities continued with the current, 
passed through the central portion of the enclosed space 
with sufficient volume to supply the wants of many 
thousand men, if it had been propei'ly received, pro- 
tected, and economized. 

During the summer many springs burst forth from the 
soil on either bank of the stream within the prison ; but 



20 MARTYRIA, OR 

the water, neglected by the military guards, soon became 
defiled b}^ the feet and grime of the prisoners, and then 
this portion of the enclosure, embracing several acres, 
was transformed into a deep and horrible mire, quivering 
with those disgusting forms of organic life which are 
produced by putrid and decaying matter. The stench 
would have corroded the surface of adamant. 

Within the two lines of palisades, and on the western 
side, was erected the single bakery which was to furnish 
the munition bread for the prisoners. Upon the hill to 
the northward, at the distance of two hundred paces from 
the outer line, was strangely placed the building which 
was known as the kitchen. The reason why this cookery 
was placed so far from water, and the direct line of 
communication with the main gate, the projectors alone 
can tell. Consider the enormous weight of provisions 
and water which full rations to even ten thousand men 
would require daily. Consider, then, the distance from 
the railway depot, the circuitous route to the entrance 
of the prison, the mode, and inefficient transportation, 
and you will have an idea of the ignoi-ance, the careless- 
ness, the perversity or wilfulness, or call it what you will, 
which prevailed here in the prison system, if system it 
can be termed 

XIII. 

To the south, on the high land which overlooked the 
prison and its appendages, was erected the two-story 
building which served as quartei's and offices for the 
officers and clerks. Along the same elevated ridge were 
located the well-built huts of the guards, who were 



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ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 21 

selected from the Confederate Reserves of Georgia, 
under the command of Howell Cobb, and numbered 
from three to five thousand men. Farther to the west, 
along the same airy and commanding ridge, and close 
to the track of the railway, appears the large two- 
story wooden buildings, which were built and arranged, 
carefully and comfortably, for the sick of the rebel 
guards. 

XIV. 

To the south-east, and at the distance of a stone's 
throw from the prison, were placed the few miserable 
and decayed tents which were to sei-ve as hospitals, in 
mockery of science and humanity. 

To-day the traces of this useless philanthropy have 
passed away, but the results are fearfully shown in the 
field to the northward, where thirteen thousand soldiers 
sleep in death, — the hai-vest of one short year ! " Here," 
said one of the surgeons to the inquirer, " death might 
be predicted with almost absolute certainty." 

Here came a medical officer of the highest rank in 
the Rebel army, and one of the most eminent savatzs 
of the South, to study the physiology and philosophy of 
stai'vation. The notes of that fearful clinic are preserved, 
and may some future day startle the scientific world with 
their clearness, their candor, their positive evidence of 
the cause of death. Thus the scalpel silences the argu- 
ment, the reasoning of sophistry. 

That there was scarcity of medicines, and all of those 
delicacies known to the cultivated or luxurious taste, 
there can be no doubt. Neither the country, nor the 



22 MARTYRIA, OR 

desires of the people, produced or favored their pio- 
duction ; but let us thank Heaven there is proof that 
there were some among the medical officers in whom the 
virtues of the heart were not entirely reversed, who did 
protest against the needless deficiencies and the system 
of treatment. 

The sufferings here were less poignant than in the 
pen ; for nature always comes to the relief of dying 
mortals, and tempers the pangs of dissolution. •» 

Food w^as demanded, but it was wanting. Shelter 
and the pure air of heaven were prayed for by gasping 
men ; even these, too, were wanting. Yet close by rose 
the gigantic pines, of the growth of centuries, standing 
in all the grandeur of the primeval forests, and offering 
to the disordered vision and senses of the dying wretches 
grateful shades, cool bowers, or the images of home, 
and the forms of the well-loved, as the faint and sinking 
traveller beholds them in the fai--off mirasre of the desert. 



The dense pine forests on either side still attest the 
luxuriant growth, which was regarded at the time of 
its selection as the finest timbered land of all Georgia. 
These immense pines are even 3'et so near as to cast 
their lengthened shadows, at morning and evening, over 
the accursed area where so many noble men perished 
for want of shelter from the heat of the noonday sun, 
the chilling dews of evening, and the frequent rain. 
The shade temperature of this place sometimes i*ose to 
the height of 105°, even no° Fahrenheit. The sun 




\\M\||\l\l\ \^A^j^ V' \ 



ANDERSOXVILLE PRISON. 23 

temperature within the stockade must have risen to I2cr" 
and upwards, for the height of the walls prevented the 
free circulation of the air. The heat of this region 
during the days of summer is unusually great. 

Its elevation above the tide level is only about three 
hundred feet ; and the hot blasts from the burning 
surface of the Gulf of Mexico, which is only about one 
hundred and fifty miles distant, sweep up over it north- 
ward, without being deviated or modified by ranges of 
mountains. The intervening country is unbroken, from 
distance to distance, by the undulation of the soil, and 
resembles more the level of a wide, green sea than the 
usual configurations of the solid earth. It bears the 
reputation of being unhealthy, and it is not strange ; for 
there are certain isolated local climates which are abso- 
lutely pestilential, as we observe in the detached mountain 
groups and table lands of India and Southern Europe. 
Its isothermal line passes through Tunis and Algiers, and 
the hyetal charts show it to be one of the most humid 
regions in America. 

Fifty-five inches of rain fall here annually, whilst 
Maine, with her constant fogs, receives but forty-two. 
and England but thirty-two. 

Was it possible for human life to endure these ex- 
tremes of heat, rendered still more positive by exposure 
to the damp and chilly dews of the nights of southern 
latitude ? It is a well-known fact, that neither men nor 
animals can labor or expose themselves with impunity 
to the rays of the noonday sun of tropical climes. Man, 
of all terrestrial animals, is the least supplied with nat- 
ural protectives. 



24 MARTYRIA, OR 



Around this ill-fated spot were stretched a cordon of 
connected earthworks, which completely enveloped the 
palisades, and commanded, with seventeen guns, every 
nook and corner of the enclosure. The forts were well 
constructed, and provided against the chances of sudden 
and desperate assaults. The cannon were well mounted, 
and placed in barbette and embrasure. Lunettes and 
redoubts covered all the approaches to the two great 
gates. 

Several regiments of the rebel reserves constantly 
occupied the forts and trenches, and guarded closely 
every avenue. Escape was impossible. 

XVII. 

To preside over this assemblage, with its arranged, pre- 
meditated, and atrocious system, were selected men well 
known for their energy of purpose and their ferocity of 
soul, and who hoped, like the Parthian, that cruelty might 
seein to the eye of man a warlike spirit. Winder has 
already been summoned to his God, without affording to 
the tribunals of men the opportunity to judge of his jus- 
tification or his shame. The wretched Wirz, arraigned 
and convicted by the most overwhelming evidence, has 
since paid the severest jDenalty which the majesty of vio- 
lated law can exact on earth. 

The instincts of nature always demand a certain respect 
for the memory of the dead, no matter how the death may 
take place. But shall this shield for the executione' 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 25 

obstruct justice, or reverence and admiration for the 
remembrance of the virtues of the nobler victims? Let 
us bring to light, and praise the heroism of noble men, 
even if we violate and break to pieces the sacred mauso- 
leums where a thousand criminals lie buried. 



XVIII. 

The dispositions of man depend greatly upon the asso- 
ciations of his early life. The youthful and pliant organ- 
ization is easily impressed by the natural scenes of 
birthplace and childhood, and the effect of the views of 
the savage mountain gorges, the dark and gloomy forests, 
or the distant landscape, smiling in the rays of the sun, 
and decorated with the most beautiful works of human 
industry, are felt hereafter in the labors and conceptions 
of manhood. Men sometimes are but the living reflec- 
tions of the savage scenes among which they have been 
reared, and seldom do we see them arise from that im- 
mense and world-wide mass of fallen humanity to cherish 
anew, to maintain the noble principles of this earthly life, 
and lead the willing world to the true worship of the 
Creator. 

Wirz was born among the glorious mountains of Swit- 
zerland, where the lofty and dazzling peaks of eternal 
snow, pointing upwards into the clear vault of heaven, 
impress the human mind with sublimity, or where the 
deeper glens sadden the heart and blast the aspiring 
imagination. 

It seems that the natural impressions made upon this 
man in this beautiful country were of an earthly and sor- 
2 



26 MARTYRIA, OR 

did character, for he has always exhibited, in his wander- 
ings in pursnit of fortune, the reckless and degraded soul 
of a mercenary. 

Seeking gain in the New World, he turned up in the 
Slave States when the revolt was determined upon, and 
without reluctance, offered his services to the frantic and 
savage horde. Although a Swigs and republican by 
birth and inheritance, he does not hesitate between liberty 
and despotism. The principles of political dogmas do 
not agitate him ; it is the desire for money, and an in- 
satiate thirst for blood, blasting the natural heart with 
cruel and remorseless passions, that led him blindly and 
swiftly to ruin. The fatal plunge taken, and there was 
no return. The compunctions of humanity passed over 
his seared and unfeeling conscience, with no more effect 
than when the waves surge over the huge rocks which 
form the bed of the deepest ocean. 

He was selected for the fatal position by the brutal 
Winder, who first observed him among the unfortunate 
prisoners of the first disastrous battle of the republic. 
What should recommend him, then, to the notice of 
this inhuman officer, can be easily conjectured by the sui- 
vivors of the prisons of that period. Cruelty then was 
pastime, it afterwards became a law. It was tJien that 
some of the chivalry, after the manner of the tribes of 
Abyssinia and Eastern Africa, made glorious trophies of 
the skulls and the bones of their antagonists who had 
fallen in battle. 

This man appeared at times kind and humane, and 
his voice had the accents of benevolence ; but when ex 
cited, natural sentiments recoiled with horror at th^ 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



37 



depth and extent of his imprecations. This assumed 
gentleness of disposition is of but little weight among 
the examples of history. 

" I have often said," writes Montaigne, " that cow- 
ardice is the mother of cruelty, and by experience have 
observed that the spite and asperity of malicious and 
inhuman courage are accompanied with the mantle of 
feminine softness." The ensanguined Sylla wept over 
the recital of the miseries he himself had caused. 

That daily murderer, the tyrant of Pheres, forbade 
the play of tragedy, lest the citizens should weep over 
the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache. 

The beautiful eyes of the Roman maidens glistened 
with tears at the imaginary sufferings of the inanimate 
marbles of Niobe and Laocoon, yet how remorselessly 
they gave the signal of death to the defeated gladiator 
on the arena of the Colosseum ! 

The warm, generous, natural impulses of the heart 
soon become affected, impaired, and even reversed by 
brutal associations. 

Circumstances develop greatly the characters of men, 
and they sometimes rise to true greatness, or sink into 
baseness, according to the law of effect, of contact, 
and example. 



BOOK SECOND. 



" Plus in carcere splritus acquirit, quam caro amittit." 

Tertullian. 
" Eternal spirit of the chainless mind ! 
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty ! thou art, 
For there thy habitation is the heart — 
The heart which love of thee alone can bind : 
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
Their country conquers with their martyrdom. 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind." 

Prisoner of Chillon. 

WITHIN the deadly shadows of this enormous 
palisade were assembled and confined together 
at one time during the hot months of 1S64, more than 
thirty-five thousand soldiers, of the various armies of 
the United States — more men than Alexander led across 
the Hellespont to the conquest of Asia ; more men than 
followed Napoleon in those glorious campaigns over 
the bright fields of Northern Italy, where every helmet 
caught some beam of glory. 

Here were men of all conditions, birth, and fortune 
— some of the best blood and sap of the republic. 

The strong-limbed lumbermen from the forests of 
Maine, the tall, gigantic men from the mountains of 

(28) 




: I 

SC Oh 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 29 

Pennsylvania, the hunters of the great prairies of the 
West, — those men of wonderful courage and endurance, 
— the artisan from the workshop, the student from his 
books, the lawyer from the forum, the minister from 
the pulpit, the child of wealth, and the poor widow's 
only son, wei"e collected here in this field of tortui'e. 

They were men in the prime of life — young, vigorous, 
and active — when they surrendered themselves as pris- 
oners of war. And as prisoners, they were entitled to 
the care and treatment acknowledged by the general laws 
and usages of civilized nations, and expected even more 
from those who boasted of having revived the generosity 
and chivalric tone of the feudal ages. Besides justice to 
all men, we owe special grace and benignity to those 
who come into our power from the hazard of battle. 
However degraded the suppliant may be, there is always 
some commerce between them and us, some bond of 
mutual relation. 

Why these men did not receive that respect which true 
courage always accords to the vanquished brave, why they 
did not receive even that atom of compassion which be- 
iongs to the nature of man, and which is seen even among 
the lower animals, history, which \o\es to avenge the 
weak and oppressed, and which aflbrds to all men, to all 
nations, the opportanity for their justification, their ven- 
geance, their glory, will surely exhibit in burning charac- 
ters of horror and shame. There are men even now 
who would sanctify the acts of cruelty of t1ie rebellion 
over the very ashes of this the nation's sepulchre. There 
are men even now who would outrage virtue, and deify 
the crime. There are men living, like those of the past, 



30 MARTYRIA, OR 

but not forgotten iron age, possessed of that remorseless 
fiuy, that implacable hatred, which nothing could arrest, 
nothing could disarm, and which could no more receive 
a sentiment of comjDassion than that sophistry which 
allowed outrage and death to the tender and guiltless 
child of Sejanus. 

"Ut homo hominem, non iratus, non timens, tantum spectatuni-- 
occiclat." 



II. 



The intention which directed the formation of this vast 
camp was Cruelty. The system which governed, or 
rather the want of system which neglected, each depart- 
ment, whether hospital or commissariat, meant Death. 
The evidence against the leaders of the Confederacy is 
not wanting, neither is it obscure. It is true that most 
of the witnesses have perished, or are fast passing prema- 
turely away ; but the chain of circumstantial evidence is 
so connected, so apparent, that, unless the faith of hu- 
manity changes, that voice, which Tacitus calls " the con- 
science of the human race," will, until the end of time-, 
overwhelm with withering scorn the memory of these 
men as the assassins of sedition, rather than the heroes 
and saints of a just revolution. 

We may search history in vain for a parallel in modern 
times. Civilization, in its known vicissitudes, cannot 
point out a spectacle so horrible. 

The massacre, in hot blood, of the Tartars of the 
Crimea by Potemkin, will not compare wath this slow, 
merciless, implacable process of murder by starvation, 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 3I 

and violation of those hygienic laws upon which the 
principle of life depends. The fusilades of that satur- 
nalia of blood, the French Revolution, which swept away 
whole generations, had the pomp of military executions, 
which threw a gleam of brilliancy over the scene, and 
gave momentary enthusiasm to the victims. Those great 
immolations of the Saracens and Persians by the Tartars 
were as rapid as the cimeters could flash. " The fury 
of ideas," says Lamartine, " is more implacable than the 
fury of men ; for men have heart, and oj^inion none. 
Systems are brutal forces, which bewail not even that 
which they crush." 

" See," said Timour to the learned men of Aleppo, 
"I am but half a man, and yet I have conquered Irak, 
Persia, and the Indies." " Render glory, therefore, to 
God," replied the Mufti of Aleppo, " and slay no one." 
" God is my witness," said, with apparent sincerity, the 
destroyer of so many millions of men, " that I put no 
one to death by a premeditated will ; no, I swear to you 
I kill no one from cruelty, but it is you who assassinate 
your own souls." 



The world has never seen such a display of courage 
and devotion as was exhibited by the intelligent masses 
of the freemen of the North, when the liberties of the 
great republic were menaced b}^ the fierce gestures of the 
slave faction and their misguided supporters. 

Men of all classes, forsaking home, kindred, and prop- 
erty, rushed to present a living barrier to the impetuous 
march of the enraged and misguided horde that pressed 



32 MARTYRIA, OR 

on with almost resistless fury, and threatened to over- 
whelm and destroy the noblest fabric of the enlightened 
mind. At last the carnage of battle has ceased. Nature 
smiles again, and rapidly obliterates the marks of the 
ravages left upon her green fields, where the huge and 
desperate armies have swayed and struggled in deadly 
conflict. The emblems of civil liberty are again restored, 
the fasces replaced ; and it now becomes the country to 
arouse itself from the depths of apathy, and revive those 
sentiments of tenderness and gratitude which nature 
everywhere bestows upon the memory of those who 
upheld the cause of liberty, and fell in its defence. 



IV. 

To understand fully the determined character, the stead- 
fast loyalt}', of these brave and vmfortunate men, we must 
consider at length the details of this enclosure, with its 
hungry, emaciate, filthy mass of humanity, whence arose 
a stench of death so powerful as to be pei'ceived at the 
distance of a league — the burning sky, the array of in- 
struments of torture, the manifest design of cruelty. 

The suffering wretch had only to pronounce the 
magic words, " Allegiance to the Rebel cause," and 
his sufferings and misery were at an end. The huge 
gates flew open, and with grim smiles, the enfeebled 
and tottering apostate was welcorned as an accession 
to the southern ranks. 

But the republic was safe here, and the sacred fire 
of its altars burned steadily through all the horrors and 
noxious vapors of this hell on earth. 



AXDERSONVILLE PRISOX. 33 

Strange to relate, that out of the seventeen thousand 
registered sick, there is record of only about tivcnty- 
Jive who accepted the offers to save their lives, and 
took the oath of the rebels. Is it not wonderful that 
this great number of men should thus, in silence, brave 
the horrors by which they were surrounded, and remain 
firm in their convictions of right and wrong? An entire 
army perished, rather than deny the country which gave 
them birth ! They would no more surrender their princi- 
ples, than their homes and altars, as ransoms for their lives. 

Has the world's history a joarallel to this devotion? 

"But these are deeds which should not pass away, 
And names that must not wither, though the earth 
Forgets her empires with a just decay." 

V. 

Heroism in the damp and noxious prisons, where 
the noble qualities of the mind are shaken and swayed 
by the sufferings of the body, is far different from that 
which is displayed upon the battle-field, amid the glit- 
tering and inspiring pomp of war. 

The men at Thermopylae fought in the shadows of 
the soul-inspiring mountains, and beheld, through the 
charm of distance, their homes and the beautiful val- 
leys they had sworn to defend. The Decii saw the 
shining swords of their enemies when they rushed into 
battle, and the dying nobly and the glory made all fear 
of death but of little weight. 

Here, instead of bright and glorious banners and the 
flash of arms, the long array of men eager for tla^ con- 

2* 



34 MARTYRIA, OR 

test, and the songs, the shouts of defiance, there was 
a vast ditch, crowded with Hving beings of scarce the 
human form, haggard and unnatural in appearance — 
a sea of red and fetid mud, trampled and defiled by 
the immense throng. Instead of the white tents and 
canopies of military encampments, there were the rag- 
ged blankets vainly stretched over upright sticks ; there 
were the holes in the earth, the burrows in the sand, 
like the villages of the rats of the great prairies of the 
West. They were more like the dens of the beasts of 
the desert than habitations for human beings. 

No Christian hand ever penetrated to their depths to 
aid the sick and suffering inmates, to nourish the hun- 
gry and console the dying, save one Romish priest ; 
and in spite of the horrors and dangers of the place, 
he was faithful to his trust. Noble man ! you have 
proved by these acts that humanity is not a mendacious 
idol, and that devotion to humanity is not a mere mat- 
ter of gain and self-aggrandizement. 

More than four thousand human beings perished in 
these excavations ! 

It seemed as though vengeance was prolonged be- 
yond death itself. 

" Where was thine ^gis, Pallas, that appalled 
Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way ? " 



VI. 



Life here was brief. The victims, as they entered the 
gate, were appalled at the horrors that were presented to 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 35 

them in this living sepulchre. Natui"e seemed to have 
abandoned the struggle earl}', and the young men passed, 
with rapid pace, from youth — that youth so rich in its 
future — to manhood, from manhood to old age. Neither 
prudence nor philosophy could protect them from the 
grievous influences of the morbid conditions to which they 
were exposed. The delicate and noble faculties were 
blunted and destroyed. Some perished at once, almost 
as quickly as though struck by the lightning of heaven, 
whilst others lingered, according to the strength of the 
hidden resources, the reserved and superabundant powers 
of 3'outh. 

Among the few survivors of the present day we can 
learn of the fearful struggle between life and death, by 
the gray hairs, the impassive features, from which the 
smile of youth has fled forever, the feeble and tottering 
steps of the man who has prematurely arrived at his 
limit of earthly existence. 

The integrity and character exhibited by these men, 
in the midst of these tortures, is unsurpassed. 

It was the same morale that immortalized the armies 
of Italy and Moreau, that covered with splendor the 
heroes of Sparta and Rome, and proved incontestably 
the superiority of the volunteer over the mercenary regu- 
lar. The wretched men died in silence, or with the name 
of home or the loved ones on their lips, and adjuring 
their comrades to stand firm in defence of their fiith, 
their country, their God. " Aly treatment here is killing 
me, mother ; but I die cheerfully for my country." They 
died as the wounded French died at Jemappes, with the 
delirium and exaltation of patriotism, uttering at the last 



36 MARTYRIA, OR 

moment some of the strains of the songs of freedom, and 
the names of country and liberty. " Thus the enthusiasm 
of the combat prolonged or reproduced itself, and sur- 
vived even in their agony." 

The sufferings of these men, wasting, putrefying, dying 
daily by scores, by hundreds, without touching the re- 
morseless hearts of the prison-keepers, recall to mind 
those monsters which history points out as rising now 
and then from out the wreck of social order. It was one 
of the results of Slavery, for Slavery weakens the natural 
horror of blood. 

Cruelty is naturally progressive, for it engenders the 
fear of a just revenge. New cruelties succeed, until ex- 
termination becomes the rule and ends the scene. 

" To hate whom we have injured is a propensity of the 
human mind," says Tacitus. 



VII. 



At the distance of about five hundred paces northwest- 
ward fi'om the stockade, in a little field which is almost 
overshadowed by the sui'rounding pines, appear a multi- 
tude of stakes standing upright in the earth, in long and 
regular lines. 

Upon every one of these fragments of boards figures 
have been carelessly scratched by an iron instrument ; and 
thev run up to the appalling number of almost thirteen 
thousand ! Each stick represents a dead man, — a hero, 
— ahd this multitude of branchless and leafless trunks 
reminds us rather of a blasted vineyard than of a ceme- 
tery arranged for the human dead. 

i 








rt a 



AXDERSONVILLE PRISON. 37 

I have seen many of the rarest sculptures in civiUzed 
lands, where art has lavished and exhausted its' powers 
to awaken sympathy for the dead, but have met with 
none that moved my heart more impressively than the 
brief, vague inscriptions, the rude memorials of this 
silent and neglected field, where sleep an entire army of 
freemen, who preferred lingering death rather than alle- 
giance to a rebel and wicked faction. 

Beneath the red clods of this field, thickly as the leaves 
of autumn, are stretched side by side a number of men 
more numerous than all of the American soldiers who 
perished by disease and casualty of battle during the 
Mexican war — more than all of the British soldiers 
who were killed, or perished from their wounds, on the 
bloody fields of the Crimea, the desperate struggles at 
Waterloo, the four great battles in Spain, — TalaverA, Sala- 
manca, Albuera, Vittoria, — and also the sanguinary con- 
test at New Orleans. All these losses of the sons of the 
British empire do not build up a hecatomb of the human 
dead so high, so vast, so red, as this one single link of the 
great chain of wrong that stretched from Virginia to Texas. 

There is no battle-field on the face of the globe, known 
to the antiquaiy, where so many soldiers are interred in 
one group as are gathered together in the broad trenches 
of this neglected field among the pine forests of Georgia. 
What a gathering is this ! What a monument of the 
incarnation of political lust, of the reckless desperation, 
the implacability of the depraved human heart, when 
resolved upon cruelty ! The world does not ofler, among 
all of her extant memorials, a more terrible, a more im- 
pressive comment upon the ambition, the power, the 
glory of mankind. 



38 MARTYRIA, OR 



VIII. 



Respect to the dead is an instinct of nature ; and to 
leave the remains of a fallen comrade upon the field, 
unhonored, is repugnant even to the red men of the for- 
est. How much more, then, does a civilized nation, of 
high degree, owe to the memory of its brave defenders ! 
Will it now forget the noble sacrifice of its sons amid 
the debasing influences of commerce and manufacture? 
Shall these sticks, which mark the nation's sacrifice, 
moulder into dust, and with their brief inscriptions be 
swept away by the winds of the world, and all traces 
of this heroism, this martyrdom, lost? 

Here is something required more than brief, hollow, 
human gratitude, and a sonorous, perishable epitaph. 

Whatever rises above the level of this plain to com- 
memorate for future ages the devotion of the men who 
sleep beneath, should be of lasting material, and as co- 
lossal as the gigantic proportions of the republic itself: 
or the field should be levelled and swept, and every dis- 
tinguishing sign blended and effaced, and the true altar 
of memorial erected in the hearts of all men who be- 
lieve and revere those eternal principles of love, justice, 
truth. 

Liberty has but one inscription to offer, and that is the 
noble lines which were traced on the dungeon wall in the 
blood of the noblest and purest of the Girondins : '•'•Potitis 
viorl quam fozdari " — Death rather than dishonor. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



39 



Impartial history will give to the memoiy of these men 
a place among the records of useless murder. 

The law of parole was all-sufHcient to prevent their 
return to service, and their absence from the fields of 
campaign would have been of no material weight with 
the pi'olific North. 

But the intent of their captors was ci'uclty ; and they 
strove to reduce the numbers, and to intimidate the cour- 
age, of the Federal soldiers, by acts of savage barbarity, 
as the relentless Tartar hoped to terrify the Hindoos into 
the profession of Mohammedanism by sacrificing multi- 
tudes, and deluging whole countries in blood. 

To deny the criminality is, as Lamartine says of the 
massacres of September, "• to belie the right of feeling of 
the human race. It is to deny nature, which is the mo- 
rality of instinct. There is nothing in mankind greater 
than humanity. It is not more permissible for a go\crn- 
ment than for a man to commit murder. If a drop of 
blood stains the hand of a murderer, oceans of gore do 
not make innocent the Dantons. The magnitude of the 
crime does not transform it into virtue. Pyramids of 
dead bodies rise high, it is true, but not so high as the 
execration of mankind." 



BOOK THIRD. 



I. 



LET us now examine and consider, with impartial 
eye, the Stockade in detail — the locality, the hos- 
pital, the dietary, and, in fact, all that relates to the con- 
dition of life in this region ; reviewing at length .the laws 
which regulate the animal economy, and judging of 
cause and effect with that spirit which Bacon calls the 
''^ pi'tidens quivstio." 

In selecting new grounds for the habitations of human 
families, whether in large or limited numbers, particu- 
lar care must always be observed, especially in warm 
climes, or where malarial influences are known to pre- 
vail. In the selection of places for the encampment of 
troops, the problem is still more difficult to treat, on 
account of the general dyscrasial condition of the soldier ; 
and oftentimes far more skill and prudence are required 
than in the choosing of a field for battle. 

How many a noble regiment have we seen impaired in 
its effective strength, and robbed of its glorious future, by 
the injudicious encampment, where vain and ignorant 
officers have sacrificed the health and morale of their 
men to please their fanciful ideas as to military etiquette 
— the form of shelter, the position, and the regularity of 
the prescribed lines of encampment ! 

(40) 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 4I 

In one of the last campaigns of Europe, when all the 
resources which modern wealth could afford were lav- 
ished with unsparing hand, there was a useless and pre- 
ventible loss of life, that recalled the most disastrous 
epidemics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

War is one of the natural laws for the demolition of the 
human race, and we see the spirit of destruction silently 
at work among friends as w^ell as foes. The supreme 
commands seem mysteriously to be placed in the hands 
of men who can cause the greatest devastation and sacri- 
fice of life ; who march their columns steadily to the 
deadly and murdei^ous assault when there is no occasion 
for it ; who encamp their troops in pestilential lowlands, 
when the healthy heights offer safer and better accommo- 
dations. 

"Nobilitas cum plebe peiit, lateque vagatur ensis." 



It is a melancholy fact, attested by the distinguished 
Marshal Saxe, that the military men of modern times are 
far less informed than the great generals of antiquity in 
the profound knowledge of public hygiene, and especially 
of that which relates to the economy of armies. We can 
admire, but hardly improve, the physical education im- 
posed upon the volunteers of Sparta and the legionaries 
of Rome ; and we have not surpassed their scientific, yet 
rude alimentation, by which they marched over immense 
distances with rapidity, and preserved their vigor and 
morale. From the extant documents of the ancients, 
from Xenophon or Vegetius, it is shown that their ac- 



42 ■ MARTYRIA, OR 

quaiiitancc with whatever related to clothing, encamp- 
ment, food, the graduation of exercises, and the employ 
of forces, was of the highest character. 

The eflects of high and low lands, of good and bad 
water, on the diseases, energy, character, and intellect 
of man, have been sketched in a masterly manner by 
Hippocrates, 

The exposure of a few hours to malignant influences 
may impair the strength of an army to such a degree as 
to thwart the most skilful plans, the wisest combinations 
for vigorous campaigns, as, for instance, the Walcheren 
expedition of the English, the Neapolitan campaign of 
France, when her army was reduced from twenty-eight 
thousand to four thousand effective men, in one hundred 
hours, from an injudicious encampment at Bale, or when 
Orlotricst his army in Paros, or, still later, the disaster to 
the'splcndid division of the French army under Espinasse, 
in the fatal Dobrutscha. 

Armies have been lost, the fate of empires decided, by 
the violation or neglect of the simple rules of hygiene ; 
and all through the blood-stained pages of military, his- 
tory do we observe examples, from the time when 
Scipio lost the battle of Trebbia, or when Bajazet threw 
away his vast empire on the plains of Angora, down to 
Kunersdorf, when the impetuosity of Frederick the Great 
would not allow rest to his men or horses. 



III. 

In 1S63 the depots near Richmond became so crowded 
by the Federal prisoners that it became a matter of serious 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



43 



consideration to the rebel authorities how to guard them, 
and attempt to feed them and the regiments guarding 
them. Then the idea was conceived of forming a great 
camp in the Gulf States, in a locality fruitful in grain, and 
in a position secure from raids from the Federal cavalry. 
Several locations were examined, but none pleased the 
selecting officer, until he had examined the site at Ander- 
sonville, to which he conceived a particular fancy. There 
were places in this section of the country where pure 
water coidd be obtained in abundance, but these spots 
were not so readily accessible, and wood was not so plen- 
ty and handy as at this. There was another consideration 
in the public view of its selection, that it was in the heart 
of the best corn-producing I'egion at that time in Georgia, 
and easy access could be had with the everglades of Flor- 
ida, where herds of half wild cattle roamed at will. 

It is not the belief of the writer, although there are many 
facts to warrant such an inference, that the selection was 
made with the view of deliberately destroying the prison- 
ers openly, and without reserve, for there were other local- 
ities far more pestilential than this ; and 3'ct, on the other 
hand, there were also many situations infinitely more 
salubrious and easy of access. There was in realitv not 
much reflection in the matter. The selectors thought only 
of the geographical and strategical position ; they cared 
not for its topography or its meteorology. 

They consulted only their convenience. The idea of 
the preservation of the lives of their unfortunate prisoners 
never troubled their minds, never disturbed their con- 
science. They would build a safe and secure jDcn, and 
if God, in his infinite and mysterious mercy, chose to 



A/I MARTYRIA, OR 

summon from earth any of the hapless wretches, they 
would not consider themselves as accountable for the 
premature deaths. Such was their reasoning. Such was 
their philosophy. Such was their conscience. The exult 
of Winder, when asserting that he was doing more for 
the Confederacy than a dozen regiments at the front, and 
the exclamation of Howell Cobb, when pointing to the ten 
thousand graves, " That is the way I would do for them," 
were perhaps the bravado of the southern slaveholder. 
Even at this late date we can find men, of some tenderness, 
in this vicinity, who have reasoned their weak minds into 
the idea and belief that no harm was ever done or in- 
tended ; and even if it can be proved, then the Federals 
only received what they deserved, and no more than their 
own sons in the prisons of the North endured. 

Such was the conscience of the Pharisee. 

Such was the remark made to the writer by a south- 
ern gentleman over the graves of the victims. 



IV. 



The topographical, features of the site are not par- 
ticularly objectionable for an encampment of a few hun- 
dred men. 

The northern and southern banks incline sufiiciently 
towards the stream in the centre to allow of proper 
drainage. The stream itself furnished water in sufficient 
volume to provide for the wants of ten thousand men, 
if it had been turned from its channel above the stock- 
ade, and introduced into the prison by simple sluices. 
But to this important item there was not the least at- 
tention paid. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 45 

To preface the analysis of this stockade, &c., we may 
wisely review the remarks of the late Dr. Jackson, the 
chief medical officer of the British army. 



V. 

" A necessity occurs in war, on many occasions, which 
leaves no option of choice in occupying posts of an un- 
healthy character : but there is, unfortunately, an authority, 
derived from example and the sanction of great names, 
which directs the military officer, when under no mili- 
tary necessity, to fix his encampment on grovmds which 
are unhealthy in themselves, or which are exposed by 
position to the influence of noxious causes, which are 
carried from a distance. 

" Such advice proceeds from the desire to act on a 
presumption of knowledge, which cannot be ascertained, 
rather than to act by the experience of facts, which man 
is qualified to observe and verify. 

'' It is consonant with the experience of military peo- 
ple, in all ages and in all countries, that camp diseases 
most abound near the muddy banks of large rivers, 
near swamps, and ponds, and on grounds which have 
been recently stripped of their woods. The fact is pre- 
cise : but it has been set aside to make way for an 
opinion. 

" It was assumed, about half a century since, by a cele- 
brated army physician, that camp diseases originate from 
causes of putrefaction, and that putrefaction is connected 
radically with a stagnant condition of the air. As 
streams of air usually proceed along rivers, with more 



46 MARTYRIA, OR 

certainty and force than in other places, and as there 
is evidently a more certain movement of air, that is, 
more winds, on open grounds than among woods and 
thickets, this sole consideration, without any regard to 
experience, influenced opinion, and gave currency to 
the destructive maxim, that the banks of rivers, open 
grounds, and exposed heights, are the most eligible sit- 
uations for the encampment of troops. They are the 
best ventilated : they must, if the theory be true, be the 
most healthy. The fact is the I'everse. But demon- 
strative as the fact may be, fashion has more influence 
than multiplied examples of fact, experimentally proved. 

" Encampments are still formed in the vicinity of 
swamps, or on grounds which are newly cleared of 
their woods, in obedience to theory, and contrary to 
fact. The savage, who acts by instinct, or who acts 
directly from the impressions of experience, has in this 
instance the advantage over the philosopher, who, rea- 
soning concerning causes he cannot know, and acting 
according to the result of his reasonings, errs and leads 
others astray by the authority of his name. 

"The savage feels, and acting by the impression of 
what he feels, instead of fixing his habitation on the 
exposed bank of large rivers, unsheltered heights, or 
grounds newly cleared of their woods, seeks the cover 
of tlic forests, even avoids the streams of air which 
proceed from rivers, from the surface of ponds, or from 
lands newly opened to the sun. The rule of the savage 
is a rule of experience, founded in truth, and applica- 
ble to the encampment of troops, even of civilized 
Europeans. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 47 

" In accordance with this principle, it is ahiiost uniform- 
ly true, cceteris paribus, that diseases are more common, 
at least more violent, in broken, irregular, and hilly coun- 
tries, where the temperature is liable to sudden changes, 
and where blasts descend with fury from the mountains, 
than in large and extensive inclined plains, under the 
action of equal and gentle bi'eezes only. From this 
fact, it becomes an object of the first consideration, in 
choosing ground for encampments, to guard against the 
impression of strong winds, on their own account, inde- 
pendently of their proceeding from swamps, rivers, and 
noxious soils. 

"• In countries covered with woods, abundantly su^^plied 
with straw, and other materials applicable to the pur- 
pose of forming shelter, it is, upon the whole, better to 
raise huts and construct bovvers than to carry canvas. 
The individual is exercised by labor, and as his mind is 
employed in contriving and executing something for 
self-accommodation, he is furnished with a daily oppor- 
tunity of renewing the pleasure. The mode of hutting, 
here recommended, effectually precludes the evils arising 
from those contaminations of air in which contagion is 
generated — an evil which often arises in tents, and is 
carried about with an army in all its movements in the 

field." 

***** 

The view of the ancients in regard to the encampment 
of troops may be understood from the counsel of Vege- 
tius : " Ne aridis et sine opacitate arborum campis, aut 
collibus ne sine tentoriis jestate milites commorentur." 



48 



MARTYRIA, OR 



VI. 



As we have remarked before, the site of the prison was 
covered with trees when its outhnes wci-e traced and 
surveyed by the rebel engineers. These trees, felled to 
the ground, were hewn, and matched so well on the in- 
ner line of the palisades as to give no glimpse of the outer 




world across the space of the dead line, which averiged 
nineteen feet in width, and which was defined by a frail 
wooden railing about three feet in height, from fifteen 
to twenty-five feet distant from the palisades. " 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. • 49 

This line of stockade rose from fifteen to eighteen feet 
above the surface of the ground, while the outer line of 
logs, which was erected about sixty paces distant from 
the inner line, was formed of the rough trunks of pines, 
and projected twelve feet above the earth. The original 
stockade measured but ten hundred and ten feet in length, 
and seven hundred and eighty-three feet in width ; and 
within this space were jammed together, for several 
months, from twenty-two thousand to thirty-five thousand 
men, thus giving a superficial area to each man, when the 
prison contained thirty thousand prisoners, but seventeen 
square feet, after deducting the nineteen feet average for 
the dead line, and the quagmire, three hundred feet in 
width. This measurement would allow for thirty-five 
thousand men but fifteen square feet of area, or less than 
two square yards to each person, or more than twenty 
times the density of Liverpool. This was all the space 
that was aftbrded before the enlargement, and this reck- 
oning does not include roads or by-paths for communi- 
cation among the prisoners. 

Seventeen and a half square feet of earth are allowed 
for the coflin's length in the field of sepulchres. There 
were here to be seen twelve acres of living men, packed 
together like the immense shoals of fish in the ocean, but 
like nothing that has life on the earth, not even the ant- 
fields. The ratio of density was equivalent to more than 
sixteen hundred thousand people to the square mile. The 
densest portion of East London has the great number of 
one hundred and sixty thousand to the square mile. 
3 



^O • MARTYRIA, OR 

VII. 

In the month of August the stockade was lengthened 
six hundred and ten feet, by what influence or from what 
cause it is unknown ; but nevertheless it was enlarged to 
the length of sixteen hundred and twenty feet, — thus 
making the entire area sixteen hundred and twenty by 
seven hundred and eighty-three feet. This enlargement 
was a salutary movement on a small scale, but it only 
prolonged the sufferings of the victims. The thirty 
thousand men had now twenty-two acres, minus the dead 
line and marsh, or thirty square feet per man, or three 
and a half square yards. There were actually, during 
this month, thirty-five thousand men within the prison, 
and some authorities give me as high as thirty-six thou- 
sand. This density is enormous, and cannot be tol- 
erated by animal life in any climate, in any latitude, 
of the world. There must be space for oi'ganic life 
to develop and maintain itself, otherwise it perishes. To 
give a correct idea of the crowded condition of this pen, 
we do not know where to turn for example. The great 
cities of civilized lands do not even approximate in their 
ratio of populations. 

The relation of density, in the three great divisions of 
London, give thirty-five, one hundred and nineteen, and 
one hundred and eighty square yards to each inhabitant. 
The densest portion of Liverpool, with its lofty and im- 
mense brick ranges of buildings, swarming with indus- 
trial life, gives more than eighty square feet to each 
person. The early Roman camps, which are a mangel 
to military men, and the closest known to military 





Eai'th uwks 



,VV;r/// 



7S7 fl. 



I I.U ft X 20 slieds 

Nc'iv Sbckade 




iHllt- 



TT.l p.G in . wide 



jSM/l 



sca/c 

PLAN or P/l/>O.V CnOLrNDS 

Mi'iisinr.f /,y Dr. HamUtiy 

J.H.BUrrORo's LITH BOSTON 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 5I 

science, gave to the ordinary legion three hundred and 
sixty-seven square feet of area to each man. The phms 
of Polybius give two hundred and thirty square feet to 
each soldier of the consular army of two legions, num- 
bering nearly eighteen thousand men, and the descriptions 
of Hyginus give similar ratios. 

The encampments of the United States infantry afford, 
in the most restricted portion (between stacks of arms 
and kitchens), two hundred and forty -four square feet per 
man, or seventeen hundred and thirty-one square feet per 
man for the whole camp. 

The space allowed by law for barracks alone is fifty- 
four square feet for each soldier, reckoned on the basis of 
a full complement of men. The rules of the rebel army 
concerning camps are the same as those of the regula- 
tions of tlie United States army. 

The United States prison at Elmira contained six thou- 
sand men, and extended over forty acres. The other 
prisons, at Chicago, Johnson's Island, Point Lookout, 
and Fort Delaware, were provided with spacious exercise 
grounds, and furnished with covered barracks, built of 
proper form, and fitted up with the required conveniences 
of life. Belle Isle, which held ten thousand prisoners, had 
but six acres, and no shelter, no conveniences whatever. 

Andersonville, which contained over thirty thousand 
prisoners, had in the stockade, before enlargement, but 
eighteen acres in all, and but twelve acres for the use of 
the prisoners, minvis the dead line and the marsh. 

The prison at Dartmoor, in England (which was a 
paradise in comparison with Andersonville), where our 
prisoners were held in captivity by the English during 



C3 MARTYRIA, OR 

the last war, furnished two hundred to three hundred 
square feet to every prisoner in the barracks, besides 
allowing spacious yards, where the prisoners were per- 
mitted to exercise daily. There were there seven large 
two-story stone buildings, each one hundred and eighty 
feet in length. Five thousand prisoners enclosed within 
twenty acres of land at Dartmoor, thirty thousand in 
twelve acres, or thirty-five thousand in twenty-two acres, 
at Andersonville. 



VIII. 

The timbers composing the stockade were of entire 
trunks of pines, massive and solid, and measuring from 
one to three feet in diameter. They were sunk into the 
earth for about five or six feet, and held in position at the 
top by long, slender pines, nailed on the outer side by 
large iron spikes. There were but two gates for this vast 
prison, and but two corresponding apertures in the outer 
palisade. These gates were constructed of massive tim- 
bers, and protected by a strong porch, occupying a base 
of about thirty feet square. These were always strongly 
guai'ded, to prevent the sudden rush of masses of men. 
At intervals of about one hundred feet, were erected 
detached and covered platforms, upon the outer side of 
the palisades, which, overlooking the summit of the wall, 
and the enclosure beyond, served as sentry boxes. The 
sentries, perched buzzard-like on the wall, could observe, 
from their high positions, at all times, the actions, the 
motions of the uncovered prisoners, and with their rifles 
shoot down the offending prisoner, whether he stood 



ANDERSONVII.LE PRISON. 



53 






u _4ll^iJ 




talking with his comrades, in the centre of the space, or 
whether he approached the sacred precincts of the dead 
line. 

Sometimes they threw down their unconsumed frag- 
ments of bread to the hungry men. Sometimes they 
were hurled with curses ; rarely were they thrown from 
feelings of compassion. Yet there were some kind- 
hearted men here, in the degrading position of the sentry 
box, who viewed the scene with affright, and who wept 
bitterly over the awful torture and sacrifice of life. 

The author, travelling on foot among the mountains 
and forests of Northern Georgia, after peace was declared, 
found these evidences of humane feeling among the letters 
preserved in the humble cabins of the poor whites. That 
unoffending men were shot down without warning, there 
is no doubt whatever ; that men, weary of torture, stag- 



^4 MARTYRIA, OR 

gered to the dead line, and calmly, joyfully received the 
fatal shot, there is positive evidence. 



IX. 

The trees were all removed from the enclosure, and 
with the specific intent of cruelty, as was openly stated 
by the brutal builders. They should have no shade, it 
was said, and no shade had the wretched men but what 
was cast by the few ragged and rotten blankets and shel- 
ter tents that the prison examiners passed by as utterly 
worthless in their examination and search for articles of 
value, whether watches, bank notes, hats, shirts, and even 
shoes. There were men who, robbed at the outer gates, 
entei'ed the prison almost naked. This system of robbery 
was open and audacious, and it is said that the only pris- 
onei^s who escaped spoliation were those who were taken 
from Sherman when Atlanta fell, and when consternation 
prevailed at the prison in consequence. It is positively 
stated that it was sanctioned by Wirz and Winder. At 
all events, tvvo men, by the names of Hume and Duncan, 
robbed the prisoners systematically, and appropriated the 
packages sent to the prisoners, from the United States, to 
such an extent that few if any articles ever reached the 
poor men to whom the boxes of food and clothing were 
sent. 

These blankets and rags were vainly stretched over 
sticks, to form the semblance of a habitation, wherever 
the earth gave firm foothold, even along the borders of 
the pestilential marsh. Those who were destitute of even 
these shreds of cloth, dug with their hands holes in the 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



55 



earth, after the example of wild beasts, or with the slimy 
water from the brook they built up, with handfuls of mud, 
little cabins over hollows scooped out from below the 
surface of the ground, and as rude as the clumps of earth, 
which that lowest degree of the human form 
Indian — inhabits. 



the Digger 




These may be seen at the present day, looking like the 
lodges of the beaver, or the mounds of the marmots of the 
pi-airies, and half concealed by those wild, useless, and 
noxious weeds which linger in, and cling to the footsteps 
of man, as he wanders in his migrations over the uncul- 
tivated lands of the globe. 

Sometimes the heavy rains washed away the roofs of 
mud, inundating the occupants beneath. Some of the 



56 MARTYRIA, OR 

poor wretclies had not the strength to lift up the incum- 
bent mass of earth, and perished miserably in their dens. 
There are now in these demolished excavations the bones 
of some of our fellow-citizens, unknown and unhonored. 
The cry of distress was so constant that few heeded the 
smothered moan. The stumps of the fallen trees were 
grubbed up by the knives and fingers of the prisoners for 
firewood to warm themselves with, or to cook their scanty 
food ; even the roots were followed down deep into the 
earth, for the purpose of obtaining the means of warmth 
which were almost entirely denied them by the prison 
keepers. 

X. 

There is no excuse for this wanton exposure to the 
vicissitudes of the climate, for the forests adjoining were 
immense in their extent, and thousands of the suffering 
men offered, begged to go and obtain material to build 
sheds or huts to protect them from the inclemency of the 
weather. Neither parole was allowed for this purpose, 
nor real attempts made to obtain the building tools. To 
show the force of the argument that the rebels had not 
sufficient aid, and that it would have been dangerous to 
have paroled any of these prisoners, there is the fact that 
there were several large steam saw-mills in the vicinity, 
and they could have easily afforded, in few weeks, all the 
lumber required for the purpose of shelter. 

Was it recklessness, was it perversity, or was it 
malice aforethought, that withheld from the prisoners 
the means of shelter? The few sheds that were erected 
were not commenced until late in the term of its occupa- 




View op the manner in which the Dead were Interred. 
The bodies were laid in rows of one hundred to three hundred, 
and after the earth was thrown over them a stake was thrust 
down to mark the place of burial. This view is taken from a 
rebel photograph. — Page 57. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 57 

tion, too late to render much service. They were merely 
roofs of boards, placed upon posts, at the distance of 
seven feet from the ground. There were neither sides 
nor partitions to these sheds, and they were not required 
during the hot months. 

Pity was not a virtue that was recognized here : the 
noble impulses of the heart were reversed, and the natural 
instincts perverted. 

The dead bodies of the thousands who perished within 
the stockade, without medical attendance, were dragged 
forth, without care, and thrown promiscuously into the 
common field-carts, which, with their carelessly heaped-up 
burdens, proceeded to the trenches, where the dead heroes 
were laid in long lines, side by side, two or three hun- 
dred in a trench, and then a stick was thrust into the 
ground, at the head of each man, to indicate the place of 
burial. For the care observed in the burial of the dead 
after the carts arrived at the cemetery, and the preserving 
of the records of the victims, and the place, we are in- 
debted to our own men, who were paroled especially for 
the purpose. 

The only solicitude observed by the rebels during or 
after interment of their victims, was shown by the civil 
engineer or surveyor of the town. He thought that so 
much animal matter should not go entirely to waste, and 
so commenced to plant grape vines over the mounds 
of the decomposing dead. 

To show the utter want of decency which ruled all 
things connected with the prison, it is stated by positive 
eye-witnesses that the same carts that transported the 
dead, went forth (without being cleansed of their reeking 

3* 



eg MARTYRIA, OR 

and disgusting filth), to the shambles and the depots for 
the meat and corn for the living prisoners. 



An eminent statistician has stated that mortality is in 
direct ratio to the density of population, and that super- 
ficial area is as essential to health as cubic space. To 
the writer's mind, the overcrowding of the men, and 
their exposure to the variations of heat and cold, the in- 
fluence of moisture, and the foul emanations of the 
infected soil, were sufficient to cause great destruction of 
human life ; and when combined with the deficient dieta- 
ry, the imagination can hardly conceive of a better field 
for disease and death than the condition of this swarming 
pen. All the elements and combinations of physical de- 
structiveness were here in full play. " Losses by battle," 
says Sir Charles Napiei", " sink to nothing, compared with 
those inflicted by improperly constructed barracks, and the 
jamming of soldiers — no other word is sufficiently expres- 
sive," " Diseases," states the French Inspector Baudens, 
" slay more men than steel or powder, and it is often easy 
to prevent them by a few simple hygienic precautions." 

In all campaigns where the care of the soldier is left to 
the military man, — .who is educated for destruction, and 
has not been taught in the economy of life, — we see in 
the mortuary and non-efficient lists a disgraceful and cul- 
pable array of thoughtless routine, vulgar prejudices, and 
systems. In our Military Academies the elements and 
the means of destruction are taught, but not a law un- 
folded that relates to the principles of health, strength, 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 59 

and life. To alleviate the burden of the military list by- 
sanitary measures is an idea unheard of, or at least un- 
noticed. " For these works," writes Chadwick, in his 
papers on " Economy," " a special training is needed for 
our military engineers, whose present peculiar training is 
only for old works for war, and for those imperfectly, — 
works for the maintenance of the health of an army 
being necessary means to the maintenance of its mili- 
tary strength. 

" The one-sided character of the common training of 
our military engineers was displayed in the Crimea, in 
the proved need of a sanitary commission to give in- 
struction for the selection and the practical drainage of 
proper sites for healthy encampments, for the choice col- 
lection and the proper distribution of wholesome water, 
for the construction of wholesome huts, and the proper 
shelter and treatment of horses as well as men." 



XII. 



In this enclosure, during a period of twelve months, 
from five thousand to thirty-six thousand human beings 
ate, slept, and drank, whilst the piles of filth were con- 
stantly accumulating, and the germs of infection silently 
at work. There was no regularity in the arrangement of 
the interior. Men collected in groups in the day time, 
and they lay in rows, like swine, at night. 

The stream, which with little ingenuity could have 
been turned to a blessing for the prison, was allowed to 
be obstructed by the heaps of grime ; and enlarging its 
area, it assisted in forming the extensive quagmires, 



6o MARTYRIA, OR 

which were several acres in extent. So little care was 
observed for the comfort or the health of the prisoners, 
that all the washings of the bakery, all the filth of the 
out-houses of the workmen, were allowed to pass down 
and mingle with the current of the stream only thirty feet 
above the point of entrance into the stockade. The trav- 
eller can observe to-day that this malicious act of refined 
cruelty, or fatal error in hygiene, was really perpetrated. 

Besides this, the drains of the camp and the town 
above emptied themselves into this stream which sup- 
plied the prison with water. 



XIII. 



The bakery was located on the west side of the stock- 
ade, about equidistant from either line of palisade. It 
was of rough boards, and but one story in height. Its 
interior disclosed two rooms, one of which communicated 
with the two ovens, which were built of common brick. 
These two ovens — fourteen feet in length by seven feet 
in width, and with one kneading-trough fifteen feet long, 
and less than three feet in width — supplied the prisoners 
with all the bread they obtained ; and so far the writer 
has not learned that there was any other source of supply. 

These same ovens, kept red hot, and worked night and 
day, to the fullest capacity, by the commissary bakers of 
the United States service, could not have produced but 
eight thousand rations of white bread, and but nine 
thousand six hundred rations of corn bread. This is the 
extreme limit ; and regarded by the workmen, who have 
made the calculations, as almost an impossibility. The 






47 p. .'> />/ . 




/^//. 



Moiuulx of earfJi 
i/yc iiJikiunt'ii 



1^' 



r///;ir 



^ 



Pun Hack 



Kiiiuii/iiiij fnmiih 



PLAN OF PTUSON BAl^FCf 



f ; a 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



6i 



ordinary capacity of this establishment was probably 
about four or five thousand rations of corn bread. This 
quantity, divided daily among thirty thousand men, would 




give but a small morsel to each one ; and this gives the 
appearance of truth to the statement, that from two to six 
ounces of corn bread were furnished as rations to the 
prisoners. 

Ask a survivor of this prison treatment, if perchance 
you can find one, how he preserved his life, and he will 
tell you, " By eating the rations of the dying." Ten 
thousand men were sick or dying in this enclosure at 
one time. 

After the carts, with their scanty burdens of food, had 
passed into the prison, and distributed their contents, ten 
or fifteen thousand of the haggard and starving men 
might be seen collected together in the central portion 
of the prison trading with each other. Some of the poor 



62 MARTYRIA, OR 

wretches would be offering a handful of peas for a knot 
of wood no larger than the human fist, in order that they 
might cook their allowance ; others offering, in barter, 
their remnants of clothing — a cap, or a shoe, or any- 
thing they possessed — for a morsel of food. 

The little knots of wood above mentioned had a stan- 
dard value of fifty cents ; yet there were immense forests 
all around, and within sight on every side. 



XIV. 



There appears to have been but one kitchen for this 
vast assemblage, and that strangely situated — far in rear 
of the outer palisade, away from water-course or sj^ring. 
The soil to-day does not present traces of a much-trav- 
elled road from its doorway to the main gate, distant 
about one third of a mile by the route taken. Consider 
the enormous weight of provisions which should have 
passed over this road when the prison contained more 
than twenty thousand men. This kitchen was a plain 
one-story shed, built of rough boards, one hundred feet 
in length, and less than fifty feet in width. It contained in 
the interior two medium-sized ranges, and four boilers of 
fifty gallons' capacity each. The capacity indicated does 
not by far equal the cooking apparatus which is required 
and furnished to the Lincoln and Harewood Hospitals, 
of Washington, for twelve hundred men. 

It is the opinion of the writer, who is familiar with the 
amount of cooking apparatus required by large hospitals 
and camps, that this kitchen, with its implements, could 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISOX. 



63 



not, in the course of twenty-four hours, by constant re- 
lays of industrious workmen, have furnished cooked 
rations to more than five thousand men. There may 
have been other arrangements for cooking in the open 
air ; but there are no longer any traces of such opera- 
tions, nor has the writer any evidence that such was 
the case. 



■(- .i 



jM* 




1 y^^^^^ " *'-'^' 






XT. 



Upon the banks of the same stream, and near the rail- 
road station, was erected the stockade which was in- 
tended for the confinement of the officers ; but it was 
abandoned, after few weeks' occupation, partly from mo- 
tives of prudence and in fear of revolt in keeping officers 
near so great a number of the rank and file of the army, 
and partly from the unfortunate selection of the locality. 
The officers were removed to Macon, and were confined 
there in the cotton sheds during a long period. This 



64 



MARTYRIA, OR 



pen, known as the officers' stockade, was built of pine- 
tree palisades, fifteen feet high, and measured one hun- 
dred and ninety-five feet in length by one hundred and 
eight feet in width, and was provided with a shed in the 
interior forty-five feet long by twenty-seven feet wide, 
and also with a walk, suspended on the outside of the 
palisade, for the use of the sentries. The location and 
the provisions of this stockade were worse and more 
dangerous than even the main prison. 



XVI. 




"^^- 



On the path\vay to the graveyard, not far from the 
prison, and in open sight, was built the hut where the 
bloodhounds were kept, always ready to track and pur- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 65 

sue the fugitives, who were so fortunate as to escape by 
evading the vigilance of the guards, or by the slow and 
dangerous process of tunnelling beneath the palisades.^ 
The system of pursuit was so perfect, the dogs so 
numerous and well trained, that it was very rarely that 
any one escaped, and then it was only by the kind inter- 
vention of the black man. 

There were but nine bloodhounds kept here, but there 
were more than fifty dogs, kept in relays, along the route 
of escape, extending from the town to the city of Macon, 
fifty miles distant. The names of these inhuman wretches, 
who kept and hunted with these hounds, are known to 
the writer, the places of their residence, the number of 
their animals, and the price they received for each hap- 
less victim overpowered by their dogs. These packs of 
hounds were generally accompanied by dogs of fierce 
and determined courage, to seize and hold the object pur- 
sued until the hunters arrived. The ordinary bloodhound 
of these regions is cowardly from degeneration, and dare 
not face the look, nor disregard the voice of man, and 
until the catch-dogs arrive and dash in, and lead the way, 
they bay and show their teeth from safe distances ; but 
the victim once disabled, they tear and rend the living 
limbs without reluctance. The bloodhound is said, 
when in a state of tranquillity, to be the most affectionate 
of all the canine race, but when once excited, he no 
longer recognizes the blood of his master from that of 
the stranger. That many men were pursued, and caught, 
and paid for by the rebel authorities, at the price of ' 
thirty dollars a head, there is abundant proof; that men 
were disabled, and torn wantonly by the hounds, and 



X 



66 MARTYR lA, OR 

afterwards died of their wounds, the writer has positive 
proof. That Federal soldiers were overpowered and 
destroyed in the forests by the dogs, and their brutal 
owners, there is evidence. 

It did not shock the civil communities of the vSouth to 
hear of the use of the bloodhounds to pursue and maim 
men of their own race and nation, for in every locality, 
for a long period past, it had been the custom to rear and 
train dogs to catch the hapless slave who had incurred 
the rage of his master, and vainly sought to escape from 
his fury in the obscure recesses of the tangled forests. 

Usage, by long repetition, had blunted the natural sym- 
pathies, so that hate readily excused the difference in 
class and color. 

XVII. 

The bloodhounds here used appear to have been of a 
degenerate breed, and to have lacked the great strength, 
the invincible determination, which the true race pos- 
sesses. The bloodhounds introduced into Cuba, to exter- 
minate the Indians, were ferocious and powerful animals. 
From these the present stock in Southern Georgia were 
probably descended, and during three centuries of change, 
have gradually lost their nobler qualities, but have pre- 
served the form. The true bloodhound is taller than the 
fox-hound, and stronger in his make. His color is of a 
reddish brown, shaded here and there with darker tints. 
His muzzle and jaws wide and strong, and the frame 
firmly knit. His scenting power is extraordinary, and 
from time immemorial his services have been made 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 6"] 

use of in tracking wounded animals or fugitives from 
justice. 

" Soon the sagacious brute, his curling tail 
Flourished in air, low bending, plies around 
His busy nose, the steaming vapor snuffs 
Inquisitive, nor leaves one turf untried, 
Till, conscious of the recent stains, his heart 
Beats quick ; his snuffing nose, his active tail 
Attest his joy : then with deep, opening mouth, 
That makes the welkin tremble, he proclaims 
Th' audacious felon : foot by foot he marks 
His winding way, while all the listening crowd 
Applaud his reasonings, o'er the watery ford. 
Dry sandy heaths, and stony, barren hills ; 
O'er beaten paths, with men and beasts disdained. 
Unerring he pursues, till at the cot 
Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat 
The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey." 



BOOK FOURTH 



ANIMALS eat that they may live. Man eats, not 
only that he may live, but that he may gather 
strength, and fulfil his high destiny on earth. 

When God gave form and animation to the dust of 
the earth, and man appeared, he did not intend that the 
sustenance of life should be left to chance or to careless 
selection. This intent of the Creator is revealed in the 
study of the organic world, w^here wonderful varieties 
and productions are offered to the appetite of man, in 
order that the " force of the universe may glow within 
his veins," and that the faculties of his mind may so 
expand that he may behold and comprehend the works 
and designs of his Maker. 

Food, next to the purity of the air, determines the 
degree of the physical well-being ; it gives the beauty 
of contour to the form ; it builds up the marvellous 
structure of the brain ; the ravishing smile of the features, 
the sublimity of thought, depend alike in great measure 
upon the benign influence of food. 

It not only gives to nations their characteristics of 
strength and solidity, but it bestows upon society more 
of grace and refinement than philosophy is willing to 
allow. 

(68) 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 69 



The question of alimentation with the civil laborer, 
exposed to healthy influences of properly distributed 
air and sunlight, and to the regular motions of a well- 
conducted life, is easy of solution to the inquiring mind. 

But when it relates to the soldier, subjected to strange 
and unhealthy influences, the explanations involve much 
study, care, and research. 

In the natural condition of man it is easy to determine 
how much food will support life and sustain physical 
exertion. The dietaries of the public institutions of 
diftei'ent countries, the experiments of physiologists, and 
the records of history give the data with sufficient clear- 
ness. As to the amount of food required daily to repair 
the waste and wants of the human organism, much 
depends upon the degree of muscular exertion and 
nervous excitation, as well as the temperature of the 
season. In the alimentation of armies scientific princi- 
ples must not be disregarded. Food must be considered 
as force ; it must contain, not only material, but power. 
The strength of men, says Baron Liebig, is in direct 
ratio to the plastic matter in their food. 

In determining the absolute quantities of nutrient sub- 
stances required by the system, Lehman observes that 
there are three magnitudes especially to be considered. 

The first is the quantity requisite to prevent the animal 
from sinking by starvation. The second is that which 
aflbrds the right supply of nourishment for the perfect 
accomplishment of the functions, and the last is that 
which indicates the amount of nutrient matter which 



yo MARTYRIA, OR 

may, under the most favorable circumstances, be sub- 
jected to metamorphosis in the blood. No one of the 
four classes, the carbohydrates, the fats, the albuminous 
matters, and the salts, will answer the purpose alone, 
but all must be employed together, and this invariable 
proportion according to the local, and, therefore, variable 
waste of the system. These considerations indicate how 
complicated the problem is. 

III. 

Life is an action ; the principle of life, whatever may 
be its nature, is eminently and visibly a principle of 
excitation, of impulsion, a motive power. 

" It is taking a false idea of life," says Cuvier, " to 
consider it as a simple link which binds the elements 
of the living body together, since, on the contrary, it is 
a power which moves and sustains them unceasingly." 

These elements do not for an instant preserve the same 
relation and connection ; or, in other words, the living 
body does not for an instant keep the same state and 
composition. " This law," adds Flourens, " does not 
aflect alone the muscles, viscera, and tissues, but there 
is a continual mutation of all the parts composing 
the bone." These views have been substantiated by 
the extended experiments of Chossat, of Von Bibra, and 
a host of experimentalists, showing how positive and 
decided are the changes in the material composition of 
the body, and especially the constitution of even the 
bone from the influence of food. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 71 



" It is from the blood that life derives the principles 
which maintain and repair it. The more vigorous, 
plastic, and rich in nutritive material, so much the more 
life increases and manifests itself, so much the quicker 
the reparatory processes restore a lesion to its natural 
condition. 

" The blood owes its vivifying properties to the pres- 
ence of oxygen, which it receives by the respiratory 
organs ; but that nourishing fluid, to complete its physio- 
logical role^ needs to receive combustible and organizable 
material." 

These Protean principles of the healthy blood form 
one fifth of its weight. 

Oxygen unites with the carbon of the food in the blood 
of animals ; carbonic acid is formed and heat evolved. 
When the atmosphere is vitiated, the oxygenating pro- 
cesses are diminished in ratio to the vitiation. 

The experiments of Seguin, Crawford, and De la Roche 
show that in a vitiated and highly heated atmosphere the 
blood is not thoroughly decarbonized, thereby deranging 
the nervous system, and affecting the animal functions as 
well as the mental faculties. The blood is subject to in- 
cessant variations. The more feeble the respiration the 
less rich it is. Man absorbs twenty to thirty quarts of 
oxygen every hour. The pure air is a real food, and is 
as necessary for the development and repair of the physi- 
cal force as the more solid forms of matter. Nine ounces 
of cai-bon are consumed every day, and the phenomenon 
of the expired carbonic acid has its maxima and minima 



72 MARTYRIA, OR 

during the day, like the regular variations of the barom- 
eter or the tides of the ocean. 



V. 

The great nervous prostration and the lack of energy 
which were observed among the prisoners, were not due 
entirely to climate. The activity of the nervous mechan- 
ism depends greatly upon the supply and purity of the 
arterial blood. It is the same with the nerve fibres as 
with the nerve centres, but in less degree. We obsen^e 
that the exaltation and depression of the nervous power 
are within the control of man by the administration of 
certain drugs, or respiration of appropriate gases. The 
accumulation of bile or urea in the blood diminishes the 
nerve energy. Many physiologists enumerate moral de- 
pressions among the principal causes of epidemics ; and 
this opinion is not strange when we consider how com- 
pletely the system is under control of the nervous influ- 
ence, and how much the supply of oxygen and blood to 
the organs and tissues depend upon the nervous power ; 
and how much, moreover, the integrity of the nervous 
system depends upon the purity of the blood. 

In the process of stai'vation, during the struggle for 
life, the hidden forces in reserve — the superabundant 
muscle, fat, tissues, even the brain-substance — are grad- 
ually absorbed. The volume of blood may remain the 
same, but the vivifying particles which circulate in the 
vital stream are rapidly consumed by the wants of the 
wasting economy, and disappear. And when these 
hematic srlobules are lessened td a certain limit below the 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 73 

normal proportion death ensues. Vierodt has discovered 
that the limit of this singular law is 52 per 1000 for the 
dog, and about 60 per 1000 for some other species of the 
mammalia. The physiologists have shown how the vivi- 
fying principles acquire vigor through the blood discs, 
and how these, when absorbing pure oxygen through the 
pulmonary circulation, contribute to the development of 
muscular fibre and the nervous material. Mammals and 
birds, when deprived of food, die in ten to twenty days, 
losing from one thii^d to one half of their weight. 



In determining the nutritive value of aliments by the 
study of their chemical composition, we cannot adhere 
strictly to the results furnished by analysis. For, says 
Baron Liebig, we cannot reckon upon results In the 
human stomach with the same regularity as we would in 
the alembics of our laboratories. 

Physiologists divide alimentary substances into two 
classes : the nitrogenous, which, according to Dumas, 
supply the demands of assimilation, and the non-nitro- 
genous, which are called by Liebig respiratories, from 
furnishing the products consumed by respiration. Neither 
the one nor the other will alone support life indefinitely, 
and when one or the other decreases below well-defined 
limits, health declines, and finally life becomes extinct 
from inanition. 

Milne Edwards gives, as the mean amount of these 
two classes, required for all climates, not less than three 
hundred and fifteen grains of nitrogen and thirty-three 

4 



74 MARTYRIA, OR 

hundred and fifty grains of carbon in the twenty-four 
hours. These views are adopted by most physiologists ; 
yet the analyses of Schlossberger and Kemp indicate that 
the idea of estimating the value of food by the quantity 
of nitrogen it contains is a fallacious one. 

The beautiful experiments of Bernard and the modern 
physiologists have vinfolded many of the laws that 
i-egulate digestion and assimilation. Yet the human 
researches in the great arcana of nature are extremely 
limited, in comparison with the vast range of physical 
phenomena, and every day we are reminded of the re- 
marks of Boerhaave to his students : " Let all these heroes 
of science meet together ; let them take bread and wine, 
the food which forms the blood of man, and by assimila- 
tion contributes to the growth of the body ; let them try 
b}' all their art, and assuredly they will not be able from 
these materials to produce a single drop of blood, — so 
much is the most common act of nature beyond the 
utmost efforts of the most extended science." 

The composition of the typical food of nature is 
revealed to us in the analysis of human milk. 



VII. 

The need of varied food is apparent to the casual 
observer, and it is well proven in the immortal work of 
Cabanis. " The experience of civilized life has shown," 
says Professor Horsford, in his admirable pamphlet on 
the marching ration of armies, " that the human organ- 
ism requires, to maintain it in health, both organic and 
inorganic food. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 75 

" Of the organic, it needs nitrogenous food for the sup- 
port of the vital tissues for work ; and saccharine, or 
oleaginous food, for warmth. Of the inorganic, it needs 
phosphates for the bones, brain, muscles, and blood ; and 
salt for its influence on the circulation and the secretions, 
and for various purposes where soda is required for a 
base ; and doubtless both phosphates and salt for many 
offices as yet imperfectly understood. ' A man may be 
starved by depriving hint of phosphates and salt, just 
as effectively as by depriving him of albumen or oil.' 
(Dalton's Physiology.) 

" The salts of potassa, magnesia, and iron, of manga- 
nese, silica, and fluorine, are always present, and perform 
services of greater or less obvious moment in the animal 
economy. These organic and inorganic substances are 
essential, but they are not all that are needed. Man, 
especially when compelled to exhausting labor, requires 
beverages and condiments. He wants coffee, or tea, or 
cocoa ; or, in the absence of these, he may feel a craving 
for wine or spirits. He wants salt, pepper, and vinegar. 
To preserve a sound body, then, there are required 
organic and inorganic food, beverages, and condiments." 

" A mixed food," says another writer, " which varies 
from time to time, seems to be essential ; and there can 
be no doubt that the changes which physicians have 
recognized in the nature of the predominating diseases, 
from century to century, are connected with changes 
which have taken place in the nature of the diet. Ex- 
cess of oil, albumen, and starch produce liability to ar- 
thritic, bilious, and rheumatic affections ; a deficiency of 
oleaginous materials, scrofula, &c." 



76 MARTYRIA, OR 

VIII. 

In attempting to form a proper estimate of the alleged 
ration furnished by the rebels to their prisoners at Ander- 
sonville, we will endeavor to arrive at just conclusions 
by comparing the known quantities with the dietaries 
of long-established hospitals, prisons, and the ration of 
armies of different periods of history. 

The effects of food upon the civil prisoners, both of 
the long and short term, have been carefully studied by 
Christison, Liebig, Barral, and Edwards ; and it is con- 
clusively shown by their statistics of the prisons of Eu- 
rope how much food will keep the prisoners in athletic 
condition when exposed to healthy influences. The 
quantity of food required depends upon the wants of 
the system and the quality of food consumed. Some 
articles are far more nutritious than others, and are far 
less bulky ; for instance, the rice eaters of China, the 
potato and milk consuiners of Ireland, eat enormously, 
compared with the beef-eating people. 

But rarely will a less quantity than seventeen ounces 
suffice for the animal economy, and not then, even, unless 
it is the concentrated essences and principles of carefully 
selected grains, and healthy meat from cattle killed in 
their native pastures, like the scientific ration correctly 
proposed by Professor Horsford. This ration is intended 
to enable armies to change their base with intervals of 
more than a month, and to assist raiding parties to per- 
form long journeys without relying for subsistence on the 
doubtful and difficult forage along the i^oute, or on the 
distant depots at the point of departure. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 77 

A handful of the ripe, golden grains, roasted and 
mixed with a little sugar, with a few ounces of beef 
dried from the meat of healthy cattle killed instantly, 
will sustain the power of life wonderfully. This is 
shown by the mountaineers of the Cordilleras, of the 
Andes, and the Rocky Mountains. 

It was substantially the same ration that enabled the 
Romans to traverse countries far remote from their main 
depots of supplies, and the Greeks to advance across, 
with safety, the immense arid deserts of Asia. Any of 
our splendidly equipped and fed armies of modern times 
would perish in a few days along the route where Xeno- 
phon and his immortal ten thousand passed with safety, 
and without much loss. 



IX. 



The mode of rationing the Roman armies, and the 
manner in which the supplies were obtained and pre- 
served, is well shown in the extant writings of those 
times. Besides the allowance of wheat daily, — one to 
two pounds, — the Roman soldiers often received a ration 
of pork, mutton, legumes, cheese, oil, salt, wine, and vin- 
egar. With the grain, a porridge-pot, a spit, the casque 
for a cup, and with vinegar to mix with their water, — 
which formed the i-egulation drink posea, or acetum, — 
they marched rapidly, and retained their extraordinary 
vigor in the midst of pestilential regions. Every soldier 
carried his own food for a given length of time, which 
was from eight to twenty-eight days. " Cibo cum stw." 
Hence Josephus wrote, the Roman soldier is laden like a 



'^8 MARTYRIA, OR 

mule. This food was always of the best quality ; and 
the wheat was always carefully selected by a commission 
appointed for the purpose, as we may learn from the in- 
scription on the column of Trajan. This wheat was not 
always eaten raw ; but was oftener roasted, and crushed 
upon a stone. 

" Frugesque receptas 
Et torrero parant flammis et frugere saxo." 

With all of these arrangements and movements, there 
was method even as to the time of taking food. The 
soldier ate twice a day, and at appointed hours — at the 
sixth hour, " Prandium ; " and at the tenth hour, " Ves- 
perna." 



The I'equirements of the system differ greatly, accord- 
ing to the degree of heat, the purity of the air, and the 
degree of physical exercise. What suffices at the equa- 
tor would be but a morsel at the pole. What sustains 
the quiet student would starve the active athlete. 

W^hen Volney spoke in surprise of the few ounces 
required to sustain the Bedouin, he forgot the purity of 
the air of the desert, as well as the indolent life of the 
Arab. 

When we offer as example the frugal diet of Cornaro, 
which was twelve ounces of solid food, with fourteen 
ounces of wine, daily, we must remember that the cele- 
brated man lived a life of moderation, avoided bad air, 
and guarded against the extremes of heat and cold. 

The data of Frerichs, the obsei-vations of Sir John Sin- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. ^9 

clair, and the determinations of Professor Horsford, show 
that eighteen ounces of properly selected food may sus- 
tain life ; and they also show that the nutrient substances 
must be of known value. 



xr. 

In forming our ideas as to the required amount of food 
necessary to healthy vigor, we will not attempt to analyze 
the magnitudes of Lehman, nor accept the statement of 
Chossat, that the animal body loses daily about one 
twenty-fourth of its weight by the metamorphosis of 
tissue ; but will again examine the diet tables of the 
prisons, hospitals, and armies of Eui'ope, leaving the 
reader to form his own conclusions. 

The distinguished physiologist, Milne Edwards, main- 
tains that the food must contain three hundred and fifteen 
grains of nitrogen and thi'ee thousand three hundred and 
fifty grains of carbon, otherwise the animal economy loses 
force, and gradually deteriorates. The data of Frerichs 
give the same views, and they accord with the observa- 
tions of the ten years' study of tlie regimens of the pris- 
ons of Scotland. Dumas, in his calculations of the ration 
of the French army, gives as its equivalent three hun- 
dred and thirty-five grains of nitrogen and four thousand 
nine hundred and fifty grains of carbon. 

In the prisons and hospitals of England, Scotland, 
France, and Germany, the dietaries furnish from seven- 
teen to twenty-eight ounces of nitrogenous and carbona- 
ceous food. 

For a time, the solid ration of the prisons of Scotland 



8o MARTYRIA, OR 

was reduced to seventeen ounces, but the prisoners lost 
weight. In the pubhc institutions of England we find 
the total quantity of solid food to be as follows : The 
British soldier receives in home service 45 ounces ; the 
seaman of the Royal navy 44 ounces ; convicts 54 ounces ; 
male pauper 29 ounces; male lunatic 31 ounces. The 
full diet of the hospitals of London furnish from 35 to 
31 ounces of solid food, besides from one to five pints of 
beer daily. The Russian soldier has about 50 ounces ; 
the Turkish more than 40 ounces ; the French nearly 
50 ounces ; the Hessian 33 ounces ; the Yorkshire laborer 
50 ovmces ; United States navy 50 ounces ; and the sol- 
dier of the United States army about 50 ounces, of solid 
food. 

XII. 

The food allowed to the prisoners at Andersonville, 
according to the statements of the prisoners and other . 
witnesses, was from two to four ounces of bacon, and 
from four to twelve ounces of corn bread daily ; some- 
times a half pint to a pint of bean, pea, or sweet potato 
soup, of doubtful value. Vegetables were unknown. 
Thus giving a total weight of solid food, per diem, of six 
to sixteen ounces of solid food. The amount was not 
constant : some days the prisoners were entirely without 
food, as was the case at Belle Isle and Salisbury. Neither 
was the deficiency aftei-wards made good. The amount 
given was oftener less than ten ounces than more. 

The contrast furnished by the dietaries of our own mil- 
itary prisons, of those of the British hulks (so much 
cursed during the last war), or by the food given by the 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 51 

Algerine pirates to their prisoners and slaves, gives rise 
to terrible convictions as to the regard the rebel authori- 
ties placed upon the lives of their prisoners. The United 
States allowed to the rebel prisoners held by them thirty- 
eight ounces of solid food at first ; but afterwards, in June, 
1S64, they reduced the ration to thirty-four and a half 
ounces per day. The range of articles composing the 
ration was the same as with our ovv^n ti'oops, the excep- 
tion being in the weight in bread. In the Dartmoor 
prison in England, where our men were confined by the 
English, when taken prisoners during the last war, and 
of which so much cruelty has been alleged, the authori- 
ties allowed to the prisoners for the first five days in the 
week 34 ounces of coarse brown bread, 8 ounces of beef, 
4 ounces of barley, ^ ounce of salt, ^ ounce of onions, 
and 1 6 ounces of turnips daily (or more than 50 ounces 
of solid food) ; and for the remaining two days the usual 
allowance of bread was given v^nth 16 ounces of pickled 
fish. The daily allowance to our men, at the Melville 
Island prison, at Halifax, during the last war, was 16 
ounces of bread, 16 ounces of beef, and one gill of peas ; 
the American agent furnishing coffee, sugar, potatoes, and 
tobacco. The allowance on the noted Medway hulks 
was 8 ounces of beef, 24 ounces of bread, and one gill 
of barley, daily, for five days; and 16 ounces of codfish, 
16 ounces potatoes, or 16 ounces of smoked herring, the 
remaining two days of the week. Furthermore, in addi- 
tion to these generous allowances of the British joeople, 
it can be said that the quality of the food was almost 
always excellent. 

The writer, with one exception, knows of no dietary to 

4* 



Sz MARTYRIA, OR 

compare with that adopted, or made use of without the 
formality of adoption, by the rebel authorities in the treat- 
ment of their prisoners. 

This exception is found in ancient history, which Plu- 
tarch has handed down to us. The Athenians, captured 
at the siege of Syracuse, were placed in the stone quar- 
ries of Ortygia, and fed upon one pint of barley and half 
a pint of water daily. Most of them perished from this 
treatment. 

XIII. 

The corn bread furnished was made, according to the 
evidence, from corn and the cob, ground up together, and 
sometimes mixed with what is called in the south cow 
peas. It varied from four to twelve ounces in weight 
daily, generally from four to eight ounces. A pound (of 
sixteen ounces) of corn bread contains, according to chem- 
ical analysis, two thousand eight hundred grains of car- 
bon and one hundred and twenty-one grains of nitrogen, 
and therefore the highest quantity of corn bread furnished, 
say twelve ounces, afforded but two thousand one hun- 
dred grains of carbon and ninety grains of nitrogen, leav- 
ing a deficiency, according to the physiologists, of more 
than twelve hundred grains of carbon and two hundred 
grains of nitrogen, to be supplied by the two or four 
ounces of doubtful bacon. 

• That the bacon could not furnish this deficiency must 
be apparent to the scientific observer. The quantity of 
bread alone, required to furnish the desired amount of 
carbon and nitrogen, would have been over three pounds 
daily, which quantity the prisoners did not have. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 83 

Milne Edwards, after treating at length the subject of 
alimentation, and offering many examples, arrives at the 
conclusion that the mean quantity of bread and meat 
required to sustain the life of man, consists of sixteen 
ounces of bread and thirteen ounces of beef daily. This 
conclusion is sustained by most of the experimentalists, 
and if lesser quantities ai'e used, they must be of choice 
selections. A small loaf of bread made of flour, ground 
from ripe, healthy wheat, will accomplish more for nutri- 
tion than two or three larger loaves, baked of damaged 
and unripe grain ; and likewise it is with meat : half a 
pound of beef from cattle killed instantly in their native 
pastures, when the flesh retains all its natural juices and 
sweetness, is worth more for the support of the system 
than two or three pounds of beef from animals that have 
been fasted and terrified, and have thereby lost, in a very 
great measui'e, their nutritious qualities. 

The flesh of mammalia undergoes a great change in its 
nutritive qualities by reason of fasting, disturbance of 
sleep, and long-continued suffering, resulting in its becom- 
ing not only worthless, but deleterious. 



XIV. 

Vegetable substances alone will not sustain life for a 
great length of time in every climate, but there is a 
vast difference betw'een the wants of inan at the equator 
and his necessities at the pole. 

Nature requires for the working of her plans materials 
of diverse natures : neither the oil, nor starch, nor sugar, 
will sustain life alone. Chemical analysis and physiologi- 



84 MARTYRIA, OR 

cal histoiy point out to us how positive is the law which 
fixes the component parts of grains and plants, and how 
imperative the necessity of adjusting in alimentation these 
forms of nutritive matter, which spring up on every side 
in profusion, and offer endless variety to the wants of 
man. 

There must be harmony of certain principles ; there 
must be union of starch, of gluten, and fat, to complete 
the process of digestion and assimilation. To feed a 
patient upon arrow-root, tapioca, or sago, and the like, is 
to consign him to certain death. Instinct impels us some- 
times to make use of articles which our habits have thrown 
aside. 

XV. 

It appears from the reasoning of Baron Liebig, that 
when we replace the flesh and bread of ordinary diet by 
juicy vegetables and fruits, the blood is beyond all doubt 
altered in its chemical character, the alkaline carbonates 
being substituted for the phosphoric acid and alkaline 
phosphates, which are supposed to exert a disturbing in- 
fluence in so many diseases, especially typhoid and inflam- 
matory affections. The gluten of grain, and the albumen 
of vegetable juices, are identical in composition with* the 
albumen of blood, but there are varieties of wheat, the 
ashes of which are in quantity and in relative proportion 
of the salts the same as those of boiled and lixiviated 
meats, and it cannot be maintained that bread made of 
such flour would, if it were the only food taken, support 
life permanently. 

The experiments of the French academicians, show 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 85 

that dogs fed exclusively on white bread, made from the 
sifted flour, died in forty days ; but when fed on black 
bread (flour with the bran), they lived without disturb- 
ance of health. Bread should always be made of grains 
grown in healthy places, and should contain the entire 
seed, with the exception of the husk ; then it will realize 
the idea of Paracelsus : " When a man eats a bit of bread, 
does he not therein consume heaven and earth, and all of 
the heavenly bodies, inasmuch as heaven by its fertilizing 
rain, the earth by its soil, and the sun by its luminous 
and heat-giving rays, have all contributed to its produc- 
tion, and are all present in the one substance?" 

Desiccated vegetables, which have lost the water of 
vegetation and other gaseous elements, which chemistry 
thus far has been unable to discover, cannot adequately 
replace the fresh articles ; the particular principle, the 
water of vegetation, can no more be restored to them 
than the dust of the crushed quartz can be recrystallized 
by the simple addition of water. 



XVI. 

In the alimentation of armies bread is the basal element. 
If it be poor, the whole system of the commissariat is de- 
ranged. History shows that it is the most important 
item in the feeding of soldiers, and that many a campaign, 
since the disaster to the army of Belisarius at Methon, 
has been lost in consequence of the quality of its munition 
bread. 

France allows to her soldiers 26 ounces of bread, Eng- 
land 34, Belgium 28, Sardinia 26, Spain 23, Prussia 32, 



86 MARTYRIA, OR 

Austria 32, Turkey 33, United States 22, Rebel Prisons 4 
to \2 oiutcesl 

The quantity of corn meal allowed to the rebel soldiers 
by the rebel government was about one and one-third 
pounds daily : this would give about 28 ounces of bread, 
allowing 30 per cent, of water, which is the rule among 
bakers ; at least it is the average quantity established by 
the civil tax commission of Paris. Besides the corn meal 
they had six ounces of bacon, and peas, and rice. This 
ration was sufficient to preserve life, as it has been shown 
by the condition of the rebel armies ; the bread alone con- 
tained 4900 grains of carbon, and 210 grains of nitrogen, 
without the aid of bacon or the peas. The bread alone 
has an excess of 1600 grains of carbon, and- a deficiency 
only of about 100 grains of nitrogen, which was readily 
supplied by the bacon and other articles. Corn bread is 
one of the chief articles of diet in the Southern States, 
and it is likewise used extensively in the South of Europe. 
It makes heavy bread unless carefully prepared and mixed 
with flour, and when mixed with the cob it often produces 
a laxative effect, the degree of which depends greatly upon 
the quantity the meal contains. When properly prepared 
with milk and the usual ingredients, it becomes an agree- 
able and nutritious article of diet, but carelessly handled, 
it is disagreeable to the palate and difficult to digest. 

The bread furnished to the prisoners was simply mixed 
with salt and the dirty water from the brook, or the foul 
spring in the rear of the bakery, and then dried in the 
heat of the oven. That bad effects arose from such a 
quality of bread cannot be doubted ; the injurious in- 
fluences of impure water in panification have been pointed 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 8/ 

out by Boussingault, in a paper presented to the French 
Academy in 1857. 

It is the common saying in the Southern States, where 
the use of wheaten bread is comparatively rare, tliat a 
bushel of corn contains more nutriment than a bushel of 
wheat. Yet the southern wheat is superior to the north- 
ern varieties, and is richer in the azotized, glutinous prin- 
ciples so essential to the formation of blood and muscle. 
Vermicelli and macaroni can be made only from the best 
southern wheat. 

Of the varieties of Indian corn in America, the yellow 
flinty corn is reckoned the sweetest and most nutritive ; 
the white corn of the South makes the fairest, but con- 
siderably the weakest flour. We do not find special fault 
with the coarsely ground meal, provided the cob is not 
included, for Mayer has pointed out, in discarding the 
commercial bi'an we throw away fourteen times as much 
phosphoric acid as there is in superfine flour. In this 
bran are contained most of the layers of gluten, in which 
are lodged the phosphates and the companion nitrogenous 
compounds — the sources of living tissues. The nutri- 
tious Graham bread is an example ; also the pumpernickel 
of Westphalia, the black bread of Russia, the coarse oat- 
meal of Scotland, contain all the gluten, all the phosphates 
and nitrogenous compounds, as well as the starch of the 
grains. Such was the bread that Celsus considered as 
equal to flesh in its capacity of nourishing. 



MARTYRIA, OR 



XVII. 



Fresh meat was rarely furnished to the prison, accord- 
ing to the reports and statements of witnesses, and we 
should doubt that it was furnished at all, if it were not 
for the number of sections of the horns of cattle which 
are strewn about the enclosure, and which the prisoners 
had used for drinking dishes ; still, many of these horns 
may have been taken from the cattle killed for the 
guards. 

That the issue of fresh beef would have been beneficial 
to the men, there is no doubt ; in fact, the experiment at 
Jamaica, which continued twenty years, proves it ; for 
the troops who were fed with a larger allowance of fresh 
meat suffered far less from dysentery than any of the 
troops of the West India islands. There is always great 
difficulty in presei-ving the good qualities of fresh meat 
in hot climes, and, on the other hand, the use of salt meat 
in the same regions is apt to engender scorbutic disorders. 
Whenever putrefactive fermentation begins with any kind 
of meat, or any recently living nitrogenized substance, 
catalytic action takes place, ammonia is evolved, and the 
product is no longer pleasant to the taste or nutritious to 
the system. Food, when even exposed to vitiated air, 
becomes deteriorated in quality, just as good flour is 
rendered worthless by mixture with the damaged fungoid 
grain. Butchers' meat on the average affords but thirty- 
five per cent, of real nutritive matter, at least such was 
the opinion presented to the French Minister of the 
Interior by Vauquelin and Percy. Accepting this deter- 
mination, we may form some idea of the relative value 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 89 

of the scanty allowance of the doubtful beef furnished 
to the prisoners, if it was furnished at all. 

That bacon was furnished, there is no doubt ; neithei 
has the quantity been underrated by the sufferers them- 
selves, as we shall presently see. And there is no reason 
why the qualitj- should not have been most excellent, 
unless it had been selected for the purposes of ciaielty. 
There is evidence that it was sometimes of very bad 
quality ; but that it was generally and systematicallv 
selected to disgust the prisoners, we are unwilling to 
believe, although we have evidence that rotten bacon 
was furnished by contractors, and the fact boasted of by 
them. The influence and effect of this decomposed food 
may be surmised by the following remark of Donovan : 
" Flesh contains the elements of some of the most deadly 
poisons that are found even in the vegetable kingdom ; a 
slight change in their mode of combination, or of the 
ratio of their quantities, may convert nutriment into a 
source of death." 

XVIII. 

There is another very important item to be considered 
in the dietary of this prison, and that is the qualit}^ and 
quantity of the water furnished for potable purposes. 
" Water," says Milne Edwards, " is an aliment, as well 
as sugar and fibrine ; for it is indispensable for the nutri- 
tion of the body, and, by whatever means it arrives in 
the economy, its role is always the same." 

The water consumed in the prison was obtained from 
the brook, and from the few wells or springs within the 
stockade. The volume of water in the brook was quite 



90 MARTYRIA, OR 

sufficient to furnish all the drinking water desired, if it 
had been introduced into the stockade by means of 
sluices. As it was, the course of the stream was left to 
nature, and no effort made to prevent its defilement by 
the camps situated farther up, or by the bake -house 
located close by. All the camps on the declivities about 
Andersonville were drained into this stream. Some 
few wells were sunk in the prison which yielded scanty 
supplies, and there were also a few springs undefiled ; 
but the quality of water everywhere was surface w^ater, 
tinged and tainted with the impurities of the soil and the 
infections of the collected filth. The thirst, which was 
excessive among the prisoners, could only be slaked by 
drinking the impure waters. Yet a very little care on 
the part of the rebel authorities would have increased 
the comfort of the prisoners in this respect, and pre- 
vented the loss of life to a very considerable degree. 

" The preservation of potable water," writes Felix 
Jacquot, " is certainly one of the capital points of 
hygiene." 

" I am sometimes disposed to think," states Dr. Leth- 
eby, the health officer of London, " that impulse water is 
before impure air as one of the most powerful causes of 
disease." In cold climates slight impurities in the drink- 
ing water are not of vital importance ; but in the tropics, 
and the adjacent regions, the least decayed vegetable or 
animal matter renders it injurious and unpalatable, and 
often is the determining cause of disease, especially 
enteric, to a fearful degree. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 9I 



XIX. 



During the months of June, July, August, and Septem- 
ber, 1S64, there was an aggregate number of prisoners 
of about twenty-eight thousand for each month. To sup- 
ply this vast number of men with bread would have been 
ordinarily no easy task, requiring, as it would have done, 
twenty-eight thousand rations of bread daily, or eight 
hundred and forty thousand rations monthly. We have 
shown that the bakery could not have furnished more than 
ninety-six hundred rations of corn bread, of the United 
States weight of twenty ounces, or ninety-six hundred 
rations daily, or two hundred and eighty-eight thousand 
rations monthly, and probably furnished but five thousand 
rations daily, or one hundred and fifty thousand rations 
monthly. If this deficiency of a half a million of rations 
existed, how can it be explained ? 

Was munition bread brought from a distance to supply 
the deficiency? When and whence, we will ask? 

During the period embracing the months of July, 
August, and September, 1864, the rebel commissary fur- 
nished, according to his statements, two hundred and 
twenty-three thousand bushels of coi^n meal, and thirty- 
seven hundred bushels of flour for the prison. 

There was, during this time (ninety-two days), a 
monthly aggregate of twenty-nine thousand prisoners, 
who required twenty-nine thousand rations of corn meal 
daily ; or, multiplied by ninety-two days, two million six 
hundred and sixty-eight thousand rations for the period of 
three months ; or, allowing the same weight as the rebel 
ration, we have 2,668,000 X ij = 37567,333 pounds of 



C)2 MARTYRIA, OR 

corn meal, or seventy-one thousand one hundred and 
forty-six bushels, allowing fifty pounds to the bushel. If 
wc now estimate the rebel garrison to have been four 
thousand in the aggregate, we will have for the re- 
quirements, 4000 X 92 X i^ =^ 553,000 pounds of meal, 
or ten thousand one hundred and ninety bushels, which 
gives, as total for the prison and garrison, eighty-one 
thousand two hundred and eighty-six bushels of corn 
meal. 

Yet the commissary states that he sent two hundred 
and twenty-three thousand bushels, or almost thi'ee times 
as much as the quantity required. This is a strange 
statement to make, as we shall endeavor to show. 

The rebel ration allowed by their law gave thirty-seven 
and a half pounds of corn meal, three pounds of rice, or 
five pounds of peas, ten pounds of bacon, salt, &c., 
monthly, of twenty-eight days, or about twenty ounces of 
meal daily, and about six ounces of bacon. We have, 
as an aggregate number of men for the above period 
(prisoners and guards), 29,000 -j-4000 X 92 =: 3,036,000 
men, requiring, according to law, three million seven 
hundred and nmety-five thousand pounds of corn meal. 
Now the commissary states that he furnished 226,700 
bushels of corn meal and flour; or, multiplied by 50 
pounds rr 11,335,000 pounds, thus giving to each man 
more than three and one-fifth pounds of meal and 
flour ; or, allowing the usual per cent, of water, more 
than four pounds of bread. That these men had sixty- 
eight ounces of corn bread apiece, or that they could 
have eaten it if they had been furnished that quantity, 
is not for a moment to be considered. This analysis 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISOX. 93 

betrays the falsity of the commissary's statement, and 
invahdates the remainder of his accounts. 

It cannot be said that this meal was to be stored for 
future use, for it is well known that corn meal will not 
keep in this climate but for a few days without fermenta- 
tion taking place. There is, again, anodier serious item 
to be considered in connection with this statement. Why 
should this overplus, of more than seven millions of 
pounds of meal, be sent to this prison, when the army of 
Virginia was calling loudly for grain? The statement 
and the figures indicate simply a foolish desire to cover 
up deficiencies, and that too in a very hasty manner. 



The same commissary states that he sent, during the 
same period of time, three hundred and thirty-nine 
thousand pounds of bacon, or five million four hundred 
and twenty-four thousand ounces. This will give thirty- 
six hundred and eighty-four pounds of bacon each day of 
the ninety-two days ; and, after allowing six ounces per 
man to the rebel garrison, we shall have- remaining but 
two thousand pounds to be divided among the twent}- 
nine thousand prisoners, or about one and one seventh 
ounces of bacon to each man. Thus the account of the 
commissary, if true, proves that the statement of the 
prisoners, that they received but two to four ounces of 
bacon daily, was correct. 

If the full amount of bacon had been allowed, there 
would have been required, at the rate of six ounces per 
man, ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds 



94 MARTYRIA, OR 

daily, whereas there was in reality but two thousand 
pounds, leaving a deficiency of more than eight thousand 
pounds daily. If fresh beef had been allowed at the same 
rate as the bacon, there would have been required ten 
thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds daily, or 
a herd of thirty of the native cattle, allowing three hun- 
dred and sixty pounds net weight to each carcass. If the 
full ration of one pound of fresh beef had been furnished, 
there would have been required more than one hundred 
and twenty of the same class of cattle daily. 



XXI. 

That the dietary of the prisoners was far from being 
adequate to their wants there is no doubt, and it only 
remains to be determined whether this deficiency arose 
from design, from ignorance, or from real scarcity of food. 

We have very serious doubts as to the truth of the state- 
ments that there was a scarcity of food in this vicinity 
during the time of the occupation of the prison. 

At the time of its selection the region was considered 
to be the richest in cereals of all the Southern States. 

In times previous it had proved to be fertile, and during 
the progress of the war the slave labor was undisturbed 
by the Federal troops. It is shown by their own statistics 
that in i860 the four counties near the prison, and along 
the line of railroad, produced nearly fourteen hundred 
thousand bushels of corn, thirty-three thousand bushels 
of wheat, three hundred thousand bushels of potatoes, 
and more than one hundred thousand bushels of beans 
and peas, besides forty-eight thousand bales of cotton. 



ANDERSOXVILLE PRISON. 



95 



It is highly probable that these quantities were doubled, 
if not trebled and quadrupled during the succeeding years 
of the war, when the planting of cotton was forbidden 
by rebel ukase, and all energy and labor were -turned 
to the jDroduction of food. There were in these four 
counties alone more than twenty thousand slaves. 

In the south of Georgia, in the wire-grass region, were 
great numbers of cattle roaming at will, and the numbers 
in the everglades of Florida were so vast, that two old 
steamboat captains offered to furnish the rebel govern- 
ment, at this very period, with half a million pounds of 
salt beef, along the railroads in Florida. Governor Watts 
wrote from Alabama in April, 1S64, that there were teii 
million pounds of bacon accessible in that State. In 
September of the same year, Mr. Hudson, of the adjoin- 
ing State of Alabama, offered to deliver to the rebel 
government half a million pounds of bacon in exchange 
for the same quantity of cotton. 

The rebel war clerk, in his diary at Richmond, wrote, 
March 17, 1864, "It appears that there is abundance of 
grain and meat in the country ; " and again, July 3, 1864, 
he notes down, " Our crop of wheat is abundant, and the 
harvest is over." 

According to the census of i860, there were in Florida 
more than six hundred thousand cattle and swine, and 
more than five millions in Georgia and Alabama. These 
two States produced during the same year more than sixty 
million bushels of corn and thirteen million bushels of 
potatoes. (Vide Appendix.) 



g6 MARTYRIA, OR 



As to the arrangement for the distribution of the food, 
there was but little attention paid to system. The prison- 
ers were ordered to arrange themselves into squads of 
two hundred and ninety men, and these squads were then 
subdivided into three messes. None of these messes 
appear to have been properly supplied with utensils to 
receive and distribute their food. Every prisoner was 
obliged to take care of himself, and all ai'ound the area 
of the stockade ma}^ be seen at the present day remains 
of bent pieces of tinned iron, the rudely-fashioned little 




tub, and sections of the horns of cattle which the poor 
prisoners had worked up with their knives, and utilized 
for their necessities. Civilized men would never have 
resorted to these primitive, rough, and slovenly means, 
if they had been supplied with the ordinaiy utensils. At 
certain hours carts, laden with the corn bread and bacon, 
were driven into the enclosure, and the rations were dis- 
tributed right and left. When soup was made, it was 
brought in pails, and the prisoners received it in their 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 9^ 

horn cups, wooden tubs, or as best they could. No drink 
was allowed but the water from the brook, whose ripples 
were like the river Lethe, for they contained the elements 
of oblivion and death. 



XXIII. 

It is evident to the writer that the quantity of food fur- 
nished to the prisoners was far from being adequate to 
support animal life, and from this deficiency alone he can 
explain to his satisfaction the enormous loss of life. The 
admirable experiments of Boussingault and the French 
academicians show how the increase of weight in the 
feeding of animals is in direct proportion to the amount 
of plastic constituents in the daily supply of food, and 
how positive is the law which regulates the animal econ- 
omy. Again, we can form some idea of the positive 
effects of the horrible condition of the prison, and of the 
extremes of heat and moisture upon the feeble digestion 
and assimilation, by the experiments of Claude Bernard, 
who shows how these functions may be disturbed by 
external influences, and how agony even causes the dis- 
appearance of sugar in the hepatic organ, and how fear 
disturbs the glucogenic process. There is connected 
with inanition a singular tendency to decomposition and 
putridity, alike in the blood and viscera. The system left 
unnourished rapidly wastes, and its vitality soon lessens 
to a degree beyond recovery. This degree depends upon 
the forces in resei've, which belongs especially to youth ; 
middle age is less liable to impressions, but when once 
affected, has less support from the system. The rapidity 

5 



^8 MARTYRIA, OR 

with which the dead decomposed immediately after death, 
astonished the observing surgeon. 

The prevailing diarrhoea and scorbutic condition were 
the results of the want of food and the combined in- 
fluences of the bad air and water, and not the primary 
causes of the feebleness and death. 

The effect of the want of food first appears in loss of 
color — wasting away of the form, diminution of strength, 
vertigo, relaxation of the system of the viscera as well as 
of the muscles, diarrhcea appears, and rapidly closes the 
struggle of the natural forces for life. 

A few days, or a few weeks, according to the initial 
condition, is sufficient to test the tenacity of the powers 
of life. Death always takes place whenever the diminu- 
tion of the total weight of the body reaches certain limits, 
which is from from -^^q to ^^ of the usual weight. We 
observe this law to be quite positive and regular with the 
lower animals, with whom the effect of starvation has 
been well studied, and the limit of loss, compatible with 
life, found to be jYa ^o^' mammals and -f"^^ for birds. 



BOOK FIFTH. 



" Les Hopltaux. C'est ici que rhumanite en pleurs accuse les for- 
faits de rambition." 



THE Hospital is the recognized type of mercy, in its 
broadest range of benevolence, tenderness, and com- 
passion, all over the countries of the earth, w^herever the 
noble sentiments of nature have force. It is one of the 
emblems of the great religion of civilization. It is coeval 
v\^ith Christ, for it appeared among the institutions of men 
in definite shape only after the establishment of Christian- 
ity ; and to its true exalting effects upon the dispositions 
of men, the Chiistian religion owes in great measure its 
rapid progress among the barbarous and pagan nations 
of the earth. 

In earlier times public charity w^as rare or impulsive 
among the civil communities. It was only the suffering 
and disabled defenders of the general service who were 
cared for at the expense of the state, as at the Prytaneum 
among the Athenians, or the numerous asylums which 
munificent Rome erected to the brave men who carved 
out with their strong arms and their blades of steel 
the colossal forms of her glory and grandeur. The mag- 
nificent ruins of Italica, which sheltered the disabled 
veterans and heroes of Africanus, look down at the pres- 

(99) 



lOO MARTYRIA, OR 

ent day over the vast and fertile plains of the Guadalquivir, 
to reproach later and higher civilizations with neglect and 
ingratitude. 

II. 

But it is to the beneficent and sublime influences of 
Christianity that are to be attributed the noble institutions 
of the present day, where the suflcring and infirm receive 
the attentions of science and the consolations of humanity. 

Never among civilized nations are they profaned for the 
purposes of cruelty, never defiled by murder under the 
mask of philanthropy. 

Enlightened communities vie with each other in self- 
sacrifice in the great and heroic labor of devotion to 
suflering mortality. It is the distinguishing degree of 
difiercnce in their excellence, their refinement, their 
religion. 

It is the last thought and reflection of the djang man, 
who, in dividing his worldly material with charity and 
benevolence, hopes to be kindly remembered on earth. 
It is the first dawning idea of childhood, with its infant 
hands filled with roses and garlands of flowers to relieve 
the pains of human suflering, or adorn the pale features 
of the departed. 

To delight in human misery is the last degree of 
earthly degradation and perversity. The mockery of the 
agony of death belongs only to the fiends of hell and 
their baser imitators. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. lOI 



Not until some time after the occupation of the prison 
did the care and condition of the sick attract the attention 
and excite the solicitude of the prison-keepers. Then a 
space was selected to the eastward, and almost adjoining 
the stockade, and here were pitched the decayed and 
dilapidated tents which were to form the hospital. 

The exact size of the space is not known, the bounda- 
ries having disappeared since the evacuation ; but the 
tents were arranged, it is said, with some degree of regu- 
larity, and the collection was surrounded by a fence, 
which served only to obstruct the circulation of free air, 
which was of vital importance ; and besides, the fence 
was of no service whatever as protection against the 
escape of the inmates, as they were before admission gen- 
erally far too feeble to make even an effort. 

The actual amount of accommodation furnished is not 
known. By some it is stated that there were nothing what- 
ever but a few rotten tent flics ; by others, and among 
them one of the sm-gcons, it is narrated that there were 
tents to cover one thousand men, and three large kettles 
to provide for their cooking, and nothing more. Yet the 
records show that there were nearly four thousand men 
at one time in this hospital. This distribution of the 
means for the protection and sustenance of life is too ter- 
rible to be believed. Let us overlook it, for there is suf- 
ficient for execration elsewhere, without turning to the 
more revolting violation and desecration of one of the 
sanctuaries of civilization. 

Beneath these tent covers there was neither straw, nor 



I02 MARTYRIA, OR 

mattresses, nor bunks : there was simply the bare earth, 
with no protection but what was afforded by the rotten 
canvas, the scanty clothing, the ragged blanket, which 
the hapless sufferer might possess. Many of the unfortu- 
nate men who perished here had neither shelter nor 
clothing. The rapacity of the captors had taken the 
remnants of the rags left by the fury of battle. For this 
want of shelter, and couches to protect and rest the weary 
limbs, there is no excuse, and there can be none ; for 
in the adjoining forests there were immense quantities of 
timber accessible, and easy of conversion into manufac- 
ture, and the extremities of the boughs of the long-leaved 
or Southern pine afforded the means of making comfort- 
able and healthy beds. 

There were then within the stockade many thousands 
of men accustomed to the use of the axe, the adze, the 
saw, and the plane, who would have in few days fash- 
ioned implements of steel out of the useless scraps of rail- 
way iron lying at the depot, and transformed the forest 
into vast, even magnificent buildings, replete with the 
comforts, the conveniences of advanced art. There were 
artisans here, of education and ingenuity, who could have 
formed out of the very dust of the place edifices as beau- 
tiful 'and wonderful to the imagination and understanding 
as the reality was repulsive and strange. 



IV. 

The guards furnished themselves with ccwnfortable huts, 
arranged with the common conveniences, and their bunks 
were suspended above the contact of the treacherous 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. IO3 

ground. Their invalids were well cax'ed for also in the 
large hospital which was ei'ected expressly for the gar- 
rison, and which consisted of two large two-story wooden 
buildings, admirably arranged, with the conveniences 
proper to the service. The kitchen, the dispensary, the 
ventilation, and the general arrangement, showed that 
scientific cai'e and forethought had been observed there. 

The hospital system of the rebels was quite complete, 
and most of their hospitals throughout the country were 
well constructed and equipped ; and some of them were 
models of neatness, comfort, and scientific arrangement. 

The garrison hospital at Andersonville offers a terrible 
contrast to the open space, the wretched agglomera- 
tion, which the rebel authorities called a hospital for the 
prisoners. 

It is true that the commanding ofiicers were compelled, 
from some unknown pressure, — whether the sense of 
shame, or dictate from Richmond, — to order and com- 
mence the erection, at a late date, of a new hospital 
stockade. This was to consist of a high palisade, about 
one thousand feet in length, with twenty-two open sheds 
expected in the interior ; but it was never finished, nor 
occupied, and it remains to-day as it was left by the rude, 
black artisans, one of the evidences of either x'emorse or 
reluctant obedience to the lingering sense of natural com- 
passion of its senseless and heartless rulers. 



V. 

In the organization of a hospital the most important 
parts are the system of nursing and the supply and cook- 



I04 MARTYRIA, OR 

ing of food ; when these are observed, much exposure to 
the elements can be endured. 

Pestilences are retarded, and sometimes completely 
checked, in their destructive career when opposed by 
generous alimentation and sympathetic care ; and the 
vital powers, — the vis medicatrix 7iatzirce, — rally 
their mighty strength for renewed effort. We have for 
instance the great and marked change in the healthy con- 
dition and the mortality of the British army before Sebas- 
topol in the spring of 1856, when England poured out 
lavishly her treasures, and sent men of scientific ability to 
correct the well-nigh fatal errors of hygiene which were 
committed by her military men. 

We have also another instance in the check of a devas- 
tating pestilence at New Orleans, as obsei"ved and men- 
tioned by Dr. Cartwright. " As soon as a generous 
public diffused the comforts of life among the seventy 
thousand destitute emigrant population of New Orleans, 
last summei", the pestilence, which was sweeping into 
eternity three hundred a day, immediately began to dis- 
appear, before frost or any other change in the weather, 
its artificial fabric being broken down by the beneficent 
hand of the American people." 



VI. 

Here there appears to have been neither system, nor 
order, nor humanity. The chances of recovery were far 
less than the certainty of death. In reality, it was almost 
certain death ; for only t^venty-four out of the hundred 
who entered ever returned to the prison again. Those 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. IO5 

patients who possessed sufficient strength helped them- 
selves to what was at hand, and what was afforded by 
the meagre dietary ; those who had not, folded their 
arms and died. 

Medical men went through the formality of prescribing 
for the dying men, but with formulce whose ingredients 
were unknown to them. 

Some of these surgeons gloated over the distresses of 
their fellow-men, and delighted in the awful destruction 
of life which was branding with eternal infamy the man- 
hood of their nation. 

Others turned and wept, for humanity was not extinct. 
Those tears have in part blotted out and redeemed the 
fearful inscriptions in that record of the events of life 
which form the history of the human race. 

It is not known that woman ever visited these precincts 
from feelings of compassion, and offered to console the 
last moments of the dying. We do know that they gazed 
upon the scene from a distance, but with what emotion 
history wisely makes no note. 

In Catholic countries we observe the hospitals attended 
by nuns, sisters of mercy and charity, all eager to labor 
in behalf of humanit}''. Besides these, the deaconesses of 
the Rhine and the beguines of Flanders have acquired 
an imperishable record in history for their philanthropic 
efforts. " There is is nothing," says Voltaire, " nobler 
than the sight of delicate females sacrificing beauty, 
youth, often wealth and rank, to devote themselves to the 
relief of human miseries under the most revolting forms." 
We have seen in our own time, in the hospitals of the 
Federal armies, a devoted band of self-sacrificing women 

5* 



106 .MARTYRIA, OR 

striving to perform their part in the great work of philan- 
thropy. Here woman never appeared. There were, in 
reality, only the vivid impressions of horror, complaints, 
groans, delirium, and the agony of death. 

More than eight thousand of our men perished miser- 
ably in this neglected and iniquitous spot. 

Men were seen here in all stages of idiocy and imbe- 
cility from the effects of starvation. They were seen ask- 
ing for bones to gnaw to relieve the pangs of hunger. 
Compassion never will believe that this request was made 
by dying mortals, and that too in a hospital, which is re- 
garded among men as the holy institution of society, and 
even by infuriated combatants as tlie only sacred precinct 
on the brutal fields of war. 

The same wail of distress was heard on the plains of 
Texas, and along the military lines of Virginia. 

Thus the black flag, threatened by the rebel cabinet, 
was hoisted. Without the courage to proclaim their in- 
tentions openly and boldly upon the battle-field, they 
exhibited them in as sure, but different form, in the 
management of their prisons. 



VII. 

The stories relating to vaccination with poisonous mat- 
ter are doubtless untrue. That there were disastrous 
effects from vaccination is probably correct, but they 
must have been the results of accident. Similar conse- 
quences have been observed in civil communities, in 
armies, and in hospitals. Serious results have been 
noticed by the writer in our own armies and hospitals. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



107 



Vaccine matter is exti'emely liable to decomposition ; 
and when heated, even by the warmth of the body, fer- 
mentation arises, and by catalytic action putrefaction 
results, forming a positive poison. That the directors 
of this hospital should resort to such means for the de- 
struction of human life is not at all probable, for the 
process required labor : and besides, the wretched inva- 
lids died with sufficient rapidity without the intervention 
of this new art of malice. 



VIII. 

In all military hospitals, food is to be regarded as the 
principal medicament. With good food, the results of 
surgery may be foretold with tolerable certainty, and the 
obstructions to the medical treatment lessen greatly or 
disappear. Without the aid of pure, healthful, life-giving 
aliment, the duration of animal life is always brief when 
when exposed to vicious and hostile influences. 

The ration used here, or the system of dietary, was not 
constant ; neither do we know sufficiently well the quan- 
tity, or quality, or variety, to form a true and candid esti- 
mate of its value in sustaining the physical strength, or 
repairing the waste and metamorphose of the organs and 
tissues of the system. 

We know, however, that it was supposed to be bacon, 
flour, and corn bread — rarely fresh meat ; and vege- 
tables were almost unknown. The only vegetables and 
delicacies were either obtained in exchange, at exorbitant 
rates, for the little cuiTcncy which the prisoners had man- 
aged to secrete among their rags, or they were now and 



I08 MARTYRIA, OR 

then introduced stealthily by a few of the humane sur- 
geons at the peril of their lives. Persons whose systems 
are weakened by want of proper food, by exhaustion 
from excessive labor, or exposure, or disease, require a 
great variety of articles from which to select the substan- 
ces which a depraved but instinctive palate often craves. 
Food which would disgust the healthy appetite, will not 
quicken into action the debilitated and flickering sensa- 
tion of taste. During an enfeebled condition, loathsome 
morsels become injurious ; for digestion is clearly at the 
command of the mind, and is often checked by its ca- 
prices. 

IX. 

The effect of gentle care and kindly sympathy is more 
felt, more marked in the militaiy hospitals, than in the 
civil. Home is farther away, and the sense of loneliness 
which all invalids experience is far more oppressive. 
Here it is that woman's influence is the strongest, and 
her sweet disposition, her friendly, compassionate smile, 
seems to prolong life, and put to flight the advancing 
shadows of death. " It is not medicine," says Charles 
Lamb ; " it is not broth and coarse meats served up at 
stated hours with all the hard formality of a prison ; it 
is not the scanty dole of a bed to lie on which a dying 
man requires from his species. Looks, attentions, con- 
solations, in a word, sympathies, are what a man most 
needs in this awful close of human sufferings. A kind 
look, a smile, a drop of cold water to a parched lip — 
for these things a man shall bless you in death." 

With soldiers, these little attentions have great effect ; 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



109 



partly from the law of contrast with the roughness of 
their every-day occupations and life, and partly from the 
rarity of such influences. And finally, when grim Death 
appears, there is with them a singular philosophy, calm- 
ness, and resignation. The writer has observed this 
upon many battle-fields, and in the hospitals far removed. 
Rarely do we hear lamentations, regrets, and shrieks 
for help : the conscious man folds his arms, and resigns 
himself to his inward thoughts, thinking, perhaps, of 

•< His native hills that rise in happier climes, 
The grot that heard his song of other times, 
His cottage home, his bark of slender sail. 
His glassy lake, and broomwood blossomed vale." 



The forms of disease observed here were simple, and 
they seldom exhibited positive indications, or, rather, the 
immediate effects and influences of malaria. Neither of 
the four great pestilential diseases appeared — cholera, 
yellow fever, plague, or remittent fever. 

The diseases treated, or noted down rather upon the 
hospital register, were generally the different forms of 
inanition, or of exhaustion of the powers of life by the 
absorption of noxious vapors, or by the exposure when 
in feeble condition to the extremes of heat and moisture. 

The mortality among the patients removed to this place 
was perfectly appalling. Nearly eight hundred men out 
of every thousand perished. Yet this might have been 
foretold from the horrible condition, the pre-arranged 
destitution of the hospital. Besides carefully selected 



no MARTYRIA, OR 

food, pure and dry air is indispensable for the recovery 
of a diseased condition, and damp and vitiated air is sure 
to retard improvement, or to induce complications. 

Neither food nor healthy atmosphere were aflbrded. 

The symptoms of the patients indicated the want of 
food, and were not in reality the signs of actual disease. 
And the post-mortems made at this hospital revealed the 
absence of lesion, save those consequent upon stai'v-ation 
or prolonged suffering. 

The minutes of this clinic are very extensive and par- 
ticular, and they exhibit in overwhelming proof the cause 
of death. 

Life was prolonged to the last degree of the natural 
vitality, and among the phenomena observed, the law of 
muscular irritability, as discovered and explained by 
Brown-Sequard, was well illustrated. Thei'e was no 
cadaveric rigidity ; for the want of nutrition, the vitiated 
atmosphere, the exposure to the vicissitudes of climate, 
had weakened and utterly destroyed all nervous power. 
Immediately after the cessations of the functions of life, 
putrefaction appeared and progressed with great rapidity. 



In discussing the rate of inortality of this hospital, we 
cannot with propriety assume a standard for comparison, 
for nowhere can we turn to analyze results from similar 
causes. We may, perhaps, take the data and statistics of 
our own military prisons, but the contrasts are too fearful 
for credulity. We will consider these at length, with other 
comparisons, in the next Book. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. Ill 

" The truth is in the facts, and not in the spirit that 
judges them." 

XII. 

The want of system cannot be charged to the fault of 
the organization of the rebel Bureau of Medicine, for 
that was well arranged and strictly governed. 

It may partly be ascribed to the general carelessness of 
the officers in charge, and partly to the desire of the 
rulei-s that the numbers of prisoners should decrease, and 
consequently their labors should diminish, no matter how, 
nor how quickly. 

That there were men in charge of the patients who 
were destitute of all moral scruples, of all refined and 
humane sentiments, there can be no doubt, but there were 
a few men who did not partake of the general madness 
of the spirit of destruction, and who exhibited a tender 
regard for the sufferings of their fellow-men. The names 
of Thornberg and Head will always be preserved as 
among the only few redeeming acts in the story of the 
great wrong. The sympathy of these men was undis- 
guised, and when protest failed to produce kindly impres- 
sions, or to bring alleviation to misery, they secretly sought 
to succor the dying men from their own scanty store at 
the peril of their lives. 

Dr. Head was not only threatened with death by the 
brutal Wirz, but he was actually imprisoned for a short 
time for giving to the dying some vegetables which he had 
gathei-ed from his little garden. " Sire," said the noble 
Surgeon Larry to Napoleon, " it is my avocation to pro- 
long life, and not to destroy it." 



113 MARTYRIA, OR 

Let no man attempt to recall the scenes that took place 
in this wretched enclosure, which was falsely called a 
hospital ; let no man attempt to lift the veil of darkness 
which now obscures the acts or the animus which gov- 
erned and directed this mockery of philanthropy, for the 
human mind already staggers under the load of horror 
which is imposed by the events of every-day life, and 
advanced civilization has no desire to renew the recollec- 
tion of the atrocities of the dark ages. 



BOOK SIXTH 



" To die, is the common lot of humanity. In the grave, the only 
distinction lies between those who leave no trace behind and the 
heroic spirits who transmit their names to posterity." — Taoitus, 



IT is always difficult to determine the natural duration 
of life, or the death-rate for any locality or any class 
of people, since the range of circumstances that affect the 
health of men and animals is so vast, that it requires great 
research, powers of analysis and comparison ; so extensive 
a knowledge of the phenomena and the laws of life, that 
few men have the courage to attack, or the ability to com- 
prehend and solve the complex problem. 

In our estimations we must consider what is due to the 
agencies of the natural world, such as geology, meteorol- 
ogy, and the like, as well as to age, constitution, tempera- 
ment, antei-ior professions, and morbid predispositions, 
also the exaltation and demoralization of moral action. 

" We see," says Buftbn, " that man perishes at all ages, 
while animals appear to pass through the period of life 
with firm and steady pace." The great naturalist shows 
how the passions, with their attendant evils, exercise great 
influence upon the health, and derange the principles 

(113) 



114 MARTYRIA, OR 

which sustain us ; how often men lead a nei-vous and 
contentious life, and that most of them die of disappoint- 
ment. Buftbn is right, and the English statistics show us 
that the duration of life is generally in proportion to its 
happiness and regularity, and that miserable lives are 
soon extinguished. 

Hope sometimes forsakes the stoutest hearts, and with 
hope disappears the mainspring of earthly life. 



In deciding upon the causes of the excessive mortality 
at Andersonville, there is not much obscurity to contend 
with. But we must admit that there must have been 
some mortalit}^, for there is a determined duration of life 
for every species of animal ; and we must also allow that 
imder the most favorable circumstances, the death-rate of 
soldiers encamped in this unhealthy locality would have 
been far beyond the normal limit. 

From calculations based upon the most accurate and 
extensive observations made in England for a long series 
of years, it was determined that a mortality of less than 
two per cent, per annum for all ages might be assumed 
as a fair average rate of deaths in a population where 
sanitary measures were properly attended to. 

It is noticed by eminent observers, that the mean rate 
for Europe is about three per cent. ; which is regarded as 
■ excessive, being about double of what is estimated as the 
natural ratio. 

Our distinguished statistician, Dr. Edward Jarvis, re 
marks that the mortality of two per cent, in England 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. II5 

includes all ages — infancy as well as the last decades of 
life ; and he states that the proper rates for comparison 
are those of the males in England of the military age, 
which is observed to be less than one per cent. 

He shows that the death-rate of the soldier in England 
is less than one per cent., and also considers the stated 
mortality of three per cent, for the continent of Europe as 
much too high. The mortality on the continent is greater 
than in England, and greater in England than in Scotland. 

In times of peace, the mortality of soldiers is not much 
greater than that of the civil laborers ; but during cam- 
paigns no limit can properly be given, for the vicissitudes 
are so x*apid, and the exposures so varied, that the chances 
of life and death cannot be estimated with fairness, or 
with any degree of certainty. But when encampments are 
an-angcd, and occupied for any considerable length of 
time, the possibilities and probabilities of health may 
then be considered with propriety. 



III. 



These chances and these causes of general mortality 
depend upon the atmospheric influences, the mephitism 
of the soil, the density of the population, and the excel- 
lence of the food and shelter, as well as upon the natural 
vieror and streng;th of the individual. 

Some classes of human beings have greater tenacity of 
life than others, but all are aftected by vicious influences, 
and yield sooner or later to the elements of destruction. 
" Everything in the animal economy is regulated by 
fixed and positive laws." 



Il6 MARTYRIA, OR 

" We live on our forces," says Galen : " as long as our 
forces are sound, we can resist everything ; when they be- 
come weak, a trifle injures us." The truth of this remark 
is well illustrated in the life of the soldier, whose health 
is in exact ratio to the condition in which he is placed. 
And his mode of existence, the combined influence of 
food, exposure, and the training of mind and body, give 
a peculiar character, which requires, when disabled, 
special modification of treatment, and a particular kind of 
experience. The ancient physiologists distinguished two 
kinds, or rather two provisions of strength — the forces 
in reserve and the forces in use ; or, as they said, " Vires 
in posse et vires in actu ; " or, as Barthez describes it, the 
radical forces and the acting forces. 

The young soldier, supported by this buoyancy of the 
unknown force of life, recovers from terrible shocks and 
disasters to his system, while the old man, fatigued and 
exhausted by the great and protracted labors of active 
campaigns, feels that he has the hidden resources — the 
reserved and superabundant powers of youth — no longer. 



" The atmospheric influences, the mephitism of the 
soil, and the inhabited locality, are the three principal 
conditions of the causes of general mortality," says 
Pringle. 

He should have added food ; for diet, of all external 
causes, affects the condition of the human race more than 
any other. Those who have observed the mortality curve 
follow the harvests in Ireland and Germany, and noticed 



AXDERSONVILLE PRISON. II7 

how strangely the number of the dead corresponded to 
the scantiness of food, and those who have experimented 
with the feeding of domesticated animals, will agree with 
me on this point. 

Let us review these three great principles of destruc- 
tion, as laid down by the distinguished European au- 
thority, and 'ipply them in the explanations of the 
mortality at Andersonville. 



y. 



It has been observed by medical men, from the time of 
Hippocrates- down to the present day, that the effects of a 
heated atmosphere, saturated with moisture, are very 
injurious, and exceedingly pi'olific of disease. 

Air at 32° of Fahrenheit, according to Leslie, contains, 
when saturated with moisture, y-^^ of its weight of water ; 
at 59°, ^V ; ^t 86°, 5V ; at 1 13°, gJj ; its capacity for moisture 
being doubled by each increase of 37° of Fahrenheit. 

The degree of heat within the stockade sometimes rose 
to beyond 110° Fahrenheit, and the degree of humidity 
was correspondingly as great. That moisture exerts 
more influence in the production of disease than any 
other meteorological condition, is well observed in every- 
day life. M. Bossi found, in his investigations, that the 
extreme and constant humidity of the atmosphere affected 
the barometer of health very markedly, and he established 
the following ratio of mortality for the different regions : 
The ratio for mountains and elevated regions he observed 
to be one in thirty-eight ; on the banks of rivers, one in 
twenty-six ; on the level plains, sown with grain, one in 



Il8 MARTYRIA, OR 

twenty-four, and in parts interspersed with pools and 
marshes, one in twenty. 



■ VI. 

The influence and value of pure and healthy air may 
be seen in the simplest physiological obser\'ations. 

Animal life is fed and sustained by respiration, as well 
as vegetable life. It is from the blood that animal life 
derives the materials and forces which maintain it, and 
we have seen how this owes its vivifying properties, in a 
great measure, to the oxygen which it receives from the 
respiratory organs, and how its power is in direct ratio to 
the purity of the air breathed. A vitiated atmosphere 
manifests itself at once in the nutritive powei's of the 
vital stream ; and the more feeble the respiration, the less 
rich the blood. This " oxygen enters by the lungs into the 
blood, and with the blood flows on and circulates through 
the body ; it also enters partly into the composition of 
the tissues, so that it is a real food, and it is as necessary 
to the construction of the human body as the other forms 
of food which are usually introduced into the stomach." 

The weight of oxygen, says Professor Johnston, taken 
up by the lungs, exceeds considerably that of all the dry, 
solid food which is introduced into the stomach of a 
healthy man. 

Man consumes one hundred gallons of air every hour, 
ordinarily with eighteen respirations per minute, and two 
hundred and six cubic feet of air is the minimum for the 
preservation of health. The minimum allowed to the 
English hospitals by artificial ventilation is twenty-two 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. II9 

hundred cubic feet the hour. The patients of St. Guy's 
receive four thousand cubic feet of fresh air every hour. 
The quantity required by the sick is enormous, to com- 
pensate the products of respiration, and all the deleterious 
evaporations of the locality w^here they are placed, and 
all other effluvia of diverse natures. In the Hospital 
Lariboissaire, at Paris, where about fifteen hundred 
cubic feet of air arc furnished by machinery every hour, 
a taint is perceptible in the atmosphere : and Morin, in 
his experiments at Hospital Beaujon, thought that two 
thousand cubic feet were hardl}^ sufficient. Dr. Sutherland 
believes four thousand feet to be necessary. The quan- 
tity, however, is nothing compared to quality. The 
quality is of the highest importance. The air must con- 
tain the vivifying properties of its normal constitution, or 
it loses force, and death must ensue. The source of 
animal lieat is in the mutual chemical action of the 
oxygen and the constituents of the blood conveyed by 
the circulation. When the atmosphere is impure the 
oxidating processes are much diminished. We receive 
into our lungs about one hundred gallons of air j^er hour, 
and from this we absorb about five gallons of oxygen, or 
about one twentieth of the volume of air inspired. 

" The essential and fundamental condition of all respi- 
ration is the reciprocal action of the nourishing fluid, and 
a medium containing oxj-gen." Dumas believes that 
oxygen is necessary to the conservation of the vitality 
and proper structure of the globules of the blood ; also 
that the integrity of these organisms is one of the essen- 
tial conditions to the arterialization of the nourishing 
stream. 



I20 MARTYRIA, OR 

, Milne Edwards, also, maintains that the great absorb- 
ing powers of the blood exist in the globules. The 
normal number of these globules is one hundred and 
twenty-seven out of the thousand component parts of the 
blood ; but they vary according to the barometer of 
health ; sometimes they are observed in disease to 
descend to sixty-five. Vierodt has shown how a certain 
limit in the number of blood globules in the mammalia 
cannot be passed in the descending scale without death 
taking place. Simon and others have also shown how a 
careful and nutritious regimen may increase these globules 
in the blood of the consumptive, bringing them up from 
sixty-four to even one hundred and forty-four. 

The blood of man is the richest of all the mammalia, 
and it contains, according to Berzelius, three times as 
many hydrochlorates as the blood of the ox. 

Its richness depends upon the species and individual, 
and also upon the degree of health, it varying according 
to the condition of the person. 

" A diseased pathological condition causes a diminution 
in the proportion of active principles of the nourishing 
fluid, and especially in fibrine, of which the abundance 
is allied to the most important activity of the vital work 
in some parts of the organism." " The blood," says Dr. 
Jones, " is not only distributed by innumerable channels 
through every recess of the body ; the blood is not only 
the source of all the elements of structure ; the blood not 
only furnishes the materials for all the secretions and ex- 
cretions, and for all the chemical changes, — but the blood 
is in turn affected by the physical and chemical changes 
of every vessel, of every nerve, of every organ and tex- 



ANDERSON VILLE PRISON. 121 



ture of the body. It is evident then that the constitution 
of the blood will depend upon the food, upon the vigor 
and perfection of the organs of digestion, respiration, cir- 
culation, secretion, and excretion ; upon the vigor and 
perfection of the nervous system, and of all the organs 
and apparatus ; and upon the correlation of the physical, 
vital, and nervous forces. The character of the blood 
will then vary with the animal ; with the organ and tissue 
through which it is circulating ; with the age, sex, tem- 
perament, race, diet, previous habits, occupation, and 
previous diseases ; with the soil and climate ; and with 
the relative states of the activity of the forces." 



VII. 



Thus it appears how important is the function of res- 
piration, and how vital the necessity for pure air. 

Pure dry air contains about 21 gallons of oxygen, and 
79 gallons of nitrogen out of 100, and about one gallon 
of carbonic acid out of 2500. Man will consume, on the 
average of 20 respirations a minute, or 1200 respirations 
the hour, about 20 pounds of air, and give off 2^ pounds 
or more of carbonic acid, besides half a pound of watery 
vapor, per diem, or, according to Andral and Gavaret, 
22 quarts of carbonic acid per hour. We have shown in 
the chapter on Alimentation how this process of respira- 
tion affects the nutrition, and how serious the results of 
its disturbance. The purer the air, the more perfect the 
type of men and animals. This was understood by the 
ancients, and they established their most famous schools 
for gladiatorial training at Capua and Ravenna. 
6 



123 MARTYRIA, OR 

The same law is observed at the present day by the 
admirers of the race-horse. The purity of the air gives 
purity to the blood, and the blood builds up the system in 
like proportion of excellence. 



VIII. 

Fifteen hundred cubic inches, or twenty-two quarts, of 
carbonic acid are expired from the lungs every hour, and 
thrown off into the surrounding atmosphere. Besides 
this. Sequin found that iS grains of organized matter 
were thrown off per minute from the body in the form of 
insensible perspiration, — 7 grains by the lungs, and 11 
grains by the skin. Hence we may form some idea of the 
rapid corruption of the air in this stockade, where 30,000 
men were breathing at one time. The foul and heavy 
vapors could not rise above the palisades unless a strong 
breeze prevailed ; and even then they became so offensive 
as almost to extinguish life, like the deadly air of the 
Grotta del Cane. The exhalations from putrescent ani- 
mal surfaces are always specifically heavier than the up- 
per warm strata in the confined spaces where men are 
crowded together, such as the wards of hospitals. We 
find, according to Professor Graham, the vitiated air to 
be composed somewhat as follows : Phosphoretted hydro- 
gen, sulphuretted hydrogen, carbonic acid, carburetted 
hydrogen, cyanogen with its compounds. The first gas 
is always recognized where the diseases of the internal 
organs are present, especiall}^ affections of the liver, 
stomach, bowels, and in fever and dysentery; and we 
observe the blackening of the lead plaster, &c., when the 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 1 33 

second is present. Stupor, headache, and sleepiness 
betray the presence of the other three gases. The diffu- 
sion of each gas is always inversely as the square root of 
the density of such gases. 

The density is thus, air being regarded as looo : — 

Phosphuretted hydrogen, 1240 

Sulphuretted " 11 70 

Carburetted " 559 

Carbonic acid, 1524 

Cyanogen, 1806 



The report of the British Parliament Commission gives 
the following data in this important question : " The 
amount of carbonic acid in the air is about 2-oW5 or 
.0005 ; the amount expired is about ^V? or .083. Respired 
air contains yV or i of carbonic acid, and this must be 
diluted ten times to make the air safe. Thus, yV -^ Jy^ = 
y^^, or .01 ; and this again divided by 10, or y^,^ -f- JjQ- 
^^ttjVct? oi" .001, gives the amount of ventilation needed 
to reduce the air to that state of purity that only y^V^ 
more of carbonic acid should be added to the air, when 
it would be represented by .0015 instead of .0005." 

Observing this rule, and taking 300 cubic feet as the 
air respired for the 34 hours, to dilute it ten times it must 
be mixed with ten times the bulk, or 3000 cubic feet — 
the space to be allowed for each individual ; but if it is 
wished to keep up a pure air, it must be mixed with ten 
times this bulk again, or 30,000 cubic feet, which shows 



134 MARTYRIA, OR 

the ventilation needed to maintain an atmosphere nearly 
pure ; or there must be admitted into the space of 3000 
cubic feet nearly 21 cubic feet per minute of fresh air by 
ventilation, if the man in it is to breathe an atmosphere 
which shall contain only three times more of carbonic 
acid than the air he breathes originally contained ; or 
again, 300 cubic feet, 3000, and 30,000, mark the re- 
quirements of one individual, in 24 hours, for respira- 
tion, space, and ventilation. On a calm day, when there 
were no strong breezes to change the air of the stockade, 
the entire quantity of air in the old stockade, allowing 
the palisades to be on the average 20 feet high, coidd be 
exhausted in 20 minutes by the 30,000 men respiring 300 
cubic inches per minute. This is not a proper estimate 
to ofler ; but it will give a just idea of the rapid and fear- 
ful vitiation of the air that took place within the en- 
closure. 

Vierodt shows how rapidly carbonic acid increases 
when foul air is breathed, and Lehman proves the rapid 
disengagement of the gas in moist atmospheres. 

Symptoms of uneasiness manifest themselves when the 
air contains from yo'oTT to y^^o of carbonic acid, and when 
the proportion amounts to ten parts to 100 of air, death 
ensues. " This effect is visible upon vegetables also, and 
many of them are extremely susceptible of impurities in 
the air, and very slight modifications in the proportion of 
its constituents are more or less prejudicial to their growth." 
But plants, like animals, vary in regard to the delicacy of 
their constitutions, some being much more susceptible 
than others. 

In warm climes the respiration becomes slower, and in 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I 25 

consequence there is less of carbon burned and less oxy- 
gen absorbed ; but on the other hand the functions of the 
skin become vastly increased, the bilious secretions be- 
come more active, and the excess of carbon is eliminated 
by this channel. 

That w^e expire more carbonic acid in a warm, moist 
atmosj^here, and less in a cold, dry climate, is shown by 
the exhilaration of our spirits on a fine frosty morning. 

No wonder that men lost their reason in this prison, 
for the blood no longer i-eddened from the imperfect arte- 
rialization, and burdened the brain with its effete matter, 
paralyzing and clogging up the delicate filaments and the 
narrow channels of thought and life. 

We have seen that the blood is subject to incessant vari- 
ations in its precise chemical constitution ; a free atmos- 
phere, well supplied, oxygenates and destroys the numer- 
ous impurities that tend to lin-k in the system and develop 
disease. 

Bichat shows, in his researches on life and death, how 
the black and carbonized blood disturbs the functions of 
the brain and acts like a narcotic poison, causing the , 
heart finally to cease its throbbings. 

These miasms and poisons floated about the enclosure 
where there was not the least sign of vegetable organism 
to absorb and convert them. As they passed into the 
systems of the prisoners they became the cause of disease, 
decrepitude, and death. 



126 MARTYRIA, OR 



Vitiated air is one of the most subtile and powerful of 
poisons, and it seems to afiect soldiers more than any- 
other class of persons, and its consequences have been 
commented upon by most of the military writers, — from 
Xenophon among the Greeks, Vegetius among the Ro- 
mans, down to those of the present time. Cavalry horses 
have been observed to suffer deterioration and death from 
the same cause. 

Ague and fever, states Dr. Johnson, " two of the most 
prominent features of the malarious influences, are as a 
drop of water in the ocean when compared with the 
other, but less obtrusive, but more dangerous maladies 
that silently disoi^ganize the vital structure of the human 
fabric under the influence of this deleterious and invisible 
poison." 

One fourth of the sailors of the English navy are sent 
home invalided every year, and one tenth of them die 
from the effects of foul air of their cabins. " Two thirds 
of the pulmonary diseases which desolate England are 
induced by this cause." Baudelocque long ago pointed 
out its influences in the etiology of scrofula. 

It is really the same influence observed by Magendie, 
and not contradicted to the present day, that putrid blood, 
brain, bile, or pus, when laid on flesh wounds, produce 
in animals, after a longer or shorter interval, vomiting, 
languor, and death. The same results and phenomena 
are observed in the inspiration of bad air ; the most ter- 
rible forms of fever arise from the overcrowding of peo- 
ple in confined and limited sj^aces. Most of the zymotic 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I 37 

diseases enter by the lungs, which are the principal absorb- 
ing agents. 

The breathing in of foul air, loaded with perceptible 
and putrid animal and vegetable emanations, gives rise to 
those z3rmotici, the ideas of which originated with Hip- 
pocrates, and to which the distinguished Liebig has since 
given form and prominence. 

Not only is animal life disturbed and destroyed, but we 
observe that vegetables even are affected by the same or 
similar causes ; that they are extremely susceptible of 
impurities in the air, and that the rapidity and vigorous 
appearance of their growth are affected whenever there 
is very slight modification in the healthy proportions of 
the atmosphere. Again, we see how seeds, when placed 
in elementary oxygen, germinate with extreme rapidity, 
and soon decay, thus indicating how the presence of 
nitrogen in the natural air restrains the force of the other 
element. 

xr. 

There was another serious defect in the management 
of the prison, and that was, the neglect to provide the 
means for entire ablution, which, in warm climes, becomes 
an imperative necessity. "Animals perspire, that they 
may live ; " and this function is as necessary to a healthy 
life as either breathing or digestion : the skin, like the 
lungs, gives off' carbonic acid and absorbs oxygen. But 
it differs from the lungs in giving off a much larger bulk 
of the former gas than it absorbs of the latter. The 
quantity of carbonic acid which escapes varies with cir- 
cumstances. It is sometimes equal to one thirtieth, and 



128 MARTYRIA, OR 

sometimes amounts to only a ninetieth i^art of that 
which is thrown off from the lungs, but generally it 
amounts to lOO grains daily. But exercise and hard 
labor increase the evolution of carbon from the skin, as 
it does from the lungs. A large quantity of nitrogen also 
escapes by the skin. 

Hence we may infer the effect upon the prisoners, from 
the want of ablution, and the means of removing the 
accumulating filth of their bodies. The functions of the 
skin, and their influence in the practical feeding of ani- 
mals, have been carefully studied by the experimentalists, 
and they have observed that the difference in washed and 
unwashed animals, during the process of fattening, amounts 
to one fifth. 

Pure air and the enforcement of daily ablutions hav- 
ing been introduced into some of the English schools, the 
sick rate was reduced two thirds. A general of a belea- 
guered city in Spain was obliged to put his soldiers on short 
allowance, and compelled them to bathe daily in order to 
amuse them, when he found, to his surprise, that they 
became in better condition than when on full rations. 

Chadwick states, in his papers on Economy, that 
" amongst soldiers of the line who have only hands and 
face washing provided for, the death-rate is upwards of 
17 per 1000." 

When sent into prisons where there is a far lower diet, 
sometimes exclusively vegetable, and without beer or 
spirits, but where regular head to foot ablutions and 
cleanliness of clothes, as well as of persons, are enforced, 
their health is vastly inci-eased, and the death-rate is 
reduced to 2^ per 1000. 



ANDERSON VILLE PRISON. 1 29 



It appears from the mortuary records of the prison 
that 13,000 men were registered and buried during the 
year of its occupation. It also appears from the same 
hospital lists that 17,873 men received medical treatment, 
or were known to be sick, and their names entered in the 
books. Of these, 825 men wei'e exchanged, leaving 
17,048 to be accounted for; thus giving a mortality of 
more than 76 per cent,, &y 760 men out of every thou- 
sand. 

It is said, and stated with confidence, that the names of 
the 4000 soldiers who died in their mud-holes within the 
pen, and who did not generally receive any medical treat- 
ment whatever, wei^e placed upon the hospital register, 
and their diseases diagnosed after death and removal 
from the stockade. But of this the writer is not positive, 
although he has seen tables of statistics of certain periods 
of the prison, where it is shown that every patient who 
was treated for disease perished. 



XIII. 

To form an idea of the awful mortality which reigned 
here, let us review the records of the hospital prisons, and 
the casualties of armies of foreign as well as our own 
country. These comparisons must, however, be received 
with much allowance, for the circumstances which led to 
death are very different. 

* * « * » 

In the prisons of Switzerland, before they were im- 
6* 



130 MARTYRIA, OR 

proved, the mortality was 25 to 35 per 1000. In the 
county jails of England it is reckoned at 10 per 1000; in 
the terrible hulks (Les Bagnes) of France it is 39 to ^^ 
per 1000, including epidemics of cholera. 

The average mortality of the London hospitals, where 
only the severer cases of disease and accident are received 
and treated, is nine per cent. 

In the hospitals of Dublin it is less than 5 per cent. ; 
in the civil hospitals of France it is from 5 to 9 per cent, ; 
in the military hospitals of the same country it is much 
less ; at Val de Grace it was 4 per cent, for a period of 
fort}^ years ; at Vincennes it was 3 per cent, for a long 
period; at the Gros Caillou, for a term of eleven years, 
it was less than 3 per cent, out of 55,000 patients. 

The mortality at Moyamensing Prison for many years 
was I per cent., and in the New York Penitentiary less than 
that for seven years. The average deaths in the prisons 
of Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and Maryland, 
was about 2 per cent. The death-rate of the rebels con- 
fined in our military prisons was small, comparativel}^ : at 
Fort Delaware it was 2 per cent, for eleven months ; at 
Johnson's Island it was 2 per cent., or 134 deaths out of 
6000 prisoners, for the period of twenty-one months. 

The loss at the i-ebel prison at Elmira is not known for 
the entire term ; but it was much less than the rebel 
" Vinculis" desires to make it. 

His own statements make but 4 per cent, during the 
worst month for instance : " Now out of less than nine 
thousand five hundred prisoners on the first of Septem- 
ber, 386 died that month." 

"At Andersonville the mortality averaged loooper month 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I3I 

out of 36,000 prisoners, or t^^. At Elmira it was 386 per 
month, out of 9500, or ^V ^f the whole. At Ehnira it 
was 4 per cent. ; at Andersonville less than 3 per cent. 

" If the moitality at Andersonville had been as great as 
at Elmira, the deaths should have been fourteen hun- 
dred and forty per month, or fifty per cent, more than 
they were." 

The official records of Andersonville show that Vin- 
culis is greatly in error ; for, instead of fourteen hundred 
and forty, the great number he imagines, they were even 
more ; for the figures show two thousand six hundred 
and seventy-eight for SejDtember, or more than fifteen 
jDer cent., and in October fifteen hundred and ninety-five, 
or more than twenty-seven per cent., and in the month 
of August three thousand men died, and on the twenty- 
third of that month one hundred and twenty-seven per- 
ished, or one every eleven minutes out of the number 
present. 

XIV. 

In the hospitals of the allied forces, during the cam- 
paign of the Crimea, which were established along the 
banks of the Bosphorus and at Constantinople, there 
were admitted, during the twenty-two months of the 
war, one hundred and thirty-nine thousand patients, and 
of these nineteen per cent, were lost during the entire 
period, or at the rate of ten per cent, per annum. 

One hundred and ninety-three thousand patients were 
admitted into the French hospitals during the same 
period, and but fourteen per cent, were lost, or less than 
eight per cent, per annum. 



133 MARTYRTA, OR 

The mortality of the military hospitals of the army of 
occupation of Spain in 1824 was less than five per cent. 

The extemporized and regular hospitals of Milan, says 
Baron Larrey, received during the Italian campaign 
thirtj^-four thousand sick and w^ounded ; of v\^hom four- 
teen hundred died, or four per cent., or forty men out of 
evei-y one thousand. The temporary hospitals of Nash- 
ville received during the year 1864 sixty-five thousand 
sick and wounded, of whom twenty-six hundred died, or 
four per cent. The numerous hospitals of Washington 
treated in 1863 sixty-eight thousand patients, and lost 
twenty-six hundred, or less than four per cent. ; and, 
in 1864, the same hospitals treated ninety-six thousand 
patients (forty-nine thousand sick and forty-seven thou- 
sand wounded), and lost six thousand, or six per cent. 
The department of Pennsylvania received fifty-six thou- 
sand patients in its various hospitals, and lost but two 
per cent. Twenty-nine thousand nine hundred patients 
were cared for in the medical and surgical wards of the 
fourteen great civil hospitals of London in 1861, and but 
twenty-seven hundred of these died, or nine per cent. 
The diary of the rebel War Clerk says, that in the 
hospitals of the rebel service sixteen hundred thousand 
patients were treated, with a loss of four per cent. ; yet 
it appears from a surreptitious copy of the cjuarterly 
report ending 1S64, relating to the prisoners in hospital 
at Richmond, that twenty-seven hundred patients were 
treated, and thirteen hundred and ninety-six died, or fifty 
per cent. ; more than half of these cases were those of 
diarrhoea and dysentery, and only seventy deaths from 
fever. It appears from the ofticial data of the Surgeon- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I33 

Generars oflice, published in November, 1865, that eight 
hundred and seventy thousand cases of w^ounds and dis- 
ease were treated by the medical staff of the United States 
army in 1863, and but two per cent, were lost; also, that 
in 1863, seventeen hundred thousand cases were cared for, 
with a loss of three per cent. only. 



XV. 

The statistics of the great armies of Austria, Sardinia, 
and France during the Italian war, when half a million 
of men met in conflict at Magenta and Solferino, show, 
according to Boudin, that but six thousand four hundred 
and ten men lost their lives — of the French, three thou- 
sand five hundred and five ; of the Sardinians, one thousand 
and forty-five ; of the Austrians, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and sixty. It is shown by the records of the British 
army, that, out of the aggregate number of four hun- 
dred and thirty-eight thousand British soldiers who were 
engaged in the twenty-two great battles of the British 
empire from 1801 to 1854, but fourteen thousand men 
were killed, or died of their wounds, or three per cent. 
These battles embrace those of Eg3-pt, Spain, France, 
Waterloo, and the Crimea. 

Contrast these blood-stained records with this one 
instance of rebel cruelty at Andersonville. Of the 
number of the Federal soldiers who have been held in 
captivity during the rebellion by the rebels, more than 
thirty thousand of them are now dead. We know from 
official records that twenty-three thousand are buried at 
Andersonville and Salisbury alone. 



134 MARTYRIA, OR 



XVI. 



Up to the month of September, 1864, forty-two thou- 
sand four hundred prisoners had been received, and out 
of this number seven thousand five hundred and eighty- 
seven, or eighteen per cent., had died since the occupa- 
tion of the prison — a period of about six months. 
During August the manoeuvres of Sherman alarmed 
them so much that they thought best to remove many 
of the prisoners to other stockades in Alabama and in 
North and South Carolina ; but yet the mortality for the 
remainder of the year was for the month of September 
seventeen per cent, out of the number present ; October, 
twenty-seven per cent. ; November, twenty-four per cent. ; 
and seven per cent, in December, when there were but 
five thousand inmates. This gives nineteen per cent, 
average for each of those four months, and indicates 
that out of the thirty-two thousand present on the first 
of August, but few thousand would have been living 
at the close of the year, had not Sherman compelled a 
reduction in the number of inmates. Out of this number 
present in August, and distributed afterwards, I believe 
that but few thousand survived the system of treatment 
at the other prisons, and ever lived to reach home. Of 
these few thousand men who were finally exchanged, a 
great many have since perished ; which statement will be 
admitted by all who have watched the phases of disease 
since the termination of the war. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



XYII. 



135 



The records state that eight thousand died from diar- 
rhoea and scurvy, and that three thousand more died from 
dysentery and vniknown causes. Two hundred and fif- 
teen tliousand cases of diarrhoea were treated in the United 
States army in 1S63, and but one thousand one hundred 
died; and of thirty-seven thousand cases of dysentery, but 
three hundred and forty-seven died ; and but one death 
from scurvy per thirty-five thousand of mean strength. In 
1S63, according to the official records by Surgeon Wood- 
ward, five hundred thousand cases of diarrhoea and 
dysentery were treated, and but two per cent. died. 
According to the same authority there were but eight 
thousand six hundred cases of scurvy during the first two 
years of the war, and but one per cent, of tliese died. 
Fever was ahnost unknown, ahhough the foul atmos- 
pheres and malarial miasms are generally so eager in 
their attacks, and so rapid in their eflects ; the autopsies 
of the dead mdn revealed to the astonished pathologist the 
utter absence of all the usual lesions of these diseases. 

Boudin, of the French army, in 1843, in his " Essai de 
Geographic Medicale," observes that phthisis and typhoid 
fever are very rare in the marshy districts where intermit- 
tent fevers of a certain gravity prevail. It does not appear 
that either of these diseases declared itself to any per- 
ceptible degree. 

The effect of starvation was so strong that miasmatic 
disease could not gain a lodgment in the system, although 
every other condition was favorable to its production. 
Scurvy seems to be prominent in the alleged diseases. 



136 MARTYRIA, OR 

The combined influence of all the vicious conditions 
could readily have produced this form of malady in its 
worst shape ; but it is one of those diseases which are 
clearly within the control of man, and for the existence 
of which, in this case, there is no excuse whatever. 
They required the treatment, practised with success in 
India, for those fluxes which are marked by a scorbutic 
state of the system — potatoes and lime juice. 

The neighboring plantations produced the potatoes in 
great quantities. In the everglades of Florida the lime 
tree, which furnishes a positive antidote, grows in wild 
luxuriance ; and the woods everywhere, the corn and 
potatoes of their fields, furnish vinegar by distillation. 
If the plantations failed in their supplies of vegetables, the 
forests furnished, with trifling labor, an excellent substitute. 

Vinegar, in the early history of war, was the chief 
and the sure reliance against the attacks of scurvy and 
malaria. To this drink chiefly. Marshal Saxe ascribes 
the amazing success of the Roman campaigns in the 
varied climates of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Scientific 
men, from Dioscorides to Orfila, have extolled its virtues 
in this respect. It is idle to say that they did not know 
how to make it, for the merest tyro in chemistry under- 
stands the method of fermentation and distillation. 



XVIII. 

It has been stated that the mortality was caused by 
epidemics ; by dysentery or camp distempers ; but the 
testimony of nature, as revealed by the scalpel of the dis- 
sector, does not admit of such statement. There was 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I37 

neither epidemic nor jiestilence. There was starvation 
instead. 

That a vast amount of this mortality was caused by the 
unfavorable, the needless, the cruel circumstances in which 
the prisoners were placed, no one acquainted with the 
phenomena of life and death will deny. 

But as to how much more than the normal rate, no man 
has sufficient generosity and impartiality to determine. 

This we know, however, that it is an axiom with all 
hygienists and military men, that the health of the soldier 
is always in direct ratio of the care taken of him. To 
give a just estimate of the normal degree of the mortality 
that was caused by diarrhoea, will indeed form a complex 
problem, since it is not only the last stage of starvation, 
but it is often produced by the decomposition of the blood 
by the dyscrasia peculiar to camp life. We obsei've it in 
all armies during the summer months, and that it seems 
to result from manifold causes. Although the predispos- 
ing cause is the dyscrasiac condition of the soldier, the 
determining cause is most always the quality of the food 
consumed, and the purity of the water used for potable 
purposes. Surface water mixed with confervoids and 
decomposed vegetable matter, and the deeper currents of 
water which pass through the rotten limestones, arc, during 
the summer, the fruitful sources of intestinal disorders. 

Those who have observed the influence of atmospheric 
changes upon disease, will comprehend why the diarrhrea 
curve followed the line of high temperature, and how it 
progressed in consequence of heat, even when unassisted 
by inanition. 



1 3$ MARTYRIA, OR 

XIX. 

It has been maintained by the rebels that many of the 
deaths were caused by nostalgia, or home-sickness. The 
truth of this remark we do not consider of sufficient im- 
portance to discuss in the extenuation of the crime, al- 
though we will admit that this disorder, which impairs 
the intellectual faculties and enfeebles the digestive func- 
tions, is often the cause of death among the French armies 
in Algeria, and the English in India, and that it can even 
become epidemic and lead to suicide. But the disease is 
clearly within the control of man. 

We can find a more I'eady reason for the explanation 
of the derangement of the mind and nervous system in 
the dietary. The statistics of insanity show how sad or 
ferocious delirium may arise from starvation ; and accord- 
ing to Combe, " a species of insanity, arising from defec- 
tive nourishment, is very prevalent among the jMilanese, 
and is easily cured by the nourishing diet provided in the 
hospitals to which the patients are sent." 

The survivors have explained the causes of death of 
their comrades. The fiices of these men told the story 
better than the tongue could describe. The peculiar look 
of these men was common to them all : the shrunken and 
pallid features — the rough and blighted skin — the va- 
cant, wild, and unearthly stare of the hollow and lustreless 
eye, — all told of the results of starvation. This look can 
no more be described than forgotten, when once seen. 
Wherever the returned sufferers landed, the bystanders 
were struck with horror by this fearful appearance. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I39 

XX. 

The impure air, the marked and rapid changes of tem- 
perature, and the foul water, rendered the tenacity of. 
animal life a simple problem, and when joined to the 
deprivation of food, it became a matter of surprise that 
any of the hapless wretches escaped with life. 

The intense heat served to accelerate the destruction 
of the organism, already weakened and sapped by the 
want of food and the putridity of the atmosphere. 

Life is always best supported at a moderate tempera- 
ture, which, however, is restricted to a certain degree, de- 
pending upon the forces of reserve in the animal ; and it 
is observed by experimentalists that all the vital proper- 
ties of the nervous centres, the nerves and muscles in 
adult as well as in young warm-blooded animals, may be 
much increased by a diminution of temperature. 

This is shown by Brown-Sequard, in his illustrations of 
the influences of prolonged muscular exertion on cadav- 
eric rigidity and putrefaction. 

Some few of the soldiers arriving from the army, with 
their systems already saturated with paludal and animal 
poisons, apd who were profoundly cachectic, could rally 
very slowly if at all, under the combined influences of the 
mephitic miasms and heat of the locality, even had there 
been no fault in the alimentation. But there was a very 
great number of the prisoners who were free from disease 
and debility, as they were direct from their homes in the 
North, or from the healthy camj^is of instruction. 

Scurvy and the vicious forms of zymotic disease, which 
depend upon starvation and vitiated atmosphere, raged 



140 MARTYRIA, OR 

unchecked. The medical care does not seem to have 
made any impression upon them, because of the limitations 
of their materia medica, and the want of attention and ac- 
commodations for the patients. 

There does not seem to have been any sanitary regula- 
tions, nor the simplest hygienic precautions adopted by 
the jDrison authorities. No proper military arrangements 
to enforce order among the turbulent or insane, to protect 
the weak from the strong in the struggle for a morsel of 
bread, a bone, or a rag of clothing ; no proper system of 
nurses to assist the feeble within the stockade or the hos- 
pital, and administer to their wants. Filth was deposited 
everywhere, because the enfeebled and dying wretches 
had not sufficient strength to crawl down to the qviag- 
mire by the banks of the stream. In the midst of these 
horrible circumstances, men met their fate with singular 
calmness and stoicism. Nature strangely appears to con- 
form and temper the asperities of fate to men and animals 
alike. 

XXI. 

It is often asked why the prisoners did not revolt, and 
w^ith the mighty energy of despair wrench down the 
gates, and strangle with their hands the few thousand of 
rebel guards. To burst through the massive timbers of 
the gates and the outer lines of palisades, and then force 
the encircling row of ramparts, which were bristling 
with troops and cannon, required something more than 
courage. This gigantic strength, this desperation of 
vigor, was not possible for the prisoners; for the food, 
and the external impressions — whether of the heat, cold, 



ANDERSOXVILLE PRISON. I4I 

or horror — had too much impoverished the blood, — the 
blood, which imparts force to human volition. 



In the summing up of the condition to which life was 
exposed in this stockade, and reviewing the vicious influ- 
ences at work, we may come to some definite conclusion 
as to the true causes of the results. It is evident from 
the comparisons and estimates of the dietary that the 
want of food alone was sufficient to cause a great number 
of deaths. It is also evident from the statements relative 
to ratio of density, to exposure, to deadly miasms, and 
exhalations from decomposing animal matter, that these 
conditions were alone sufficient to cause excessive mor- 
talit}', even if the alimentation had been generous and 
proper. 

This terrible mortality, without the influence of epi- 
demics, is without parallel, and is without excuse, save on 
the principle that war is for mutual destruction, that the 
captor has the right of disposal, and that the captives 
must be put to death. The philanthropist may console 
himself with the idea that climate, with its unseen but 
powerful agencies, has been the author of the destruction 
of this army of men ; but the sui^geon and man of science 
will recognize the true causes, and express their opinion 
in but one word, and that word is murder : that it was 
deliberate destruction ; but whether with the conscience 
of the Tartar, or with premeditated free-will, it matters 
little, — the result is the same. 



BOOK SEVENTH 



" Homo sum ; humani nihil a me alienum puto." — Terence. 

" Since no man has a natural right over his fellow- creature, and 
since force produces no right, conventions then remain as the base 
for all legitimate authority among men." — Rousseau. 



WAR," exclaims the author of the " Social Contract," 
" Is not exactly a relation of man to man, but a 
relation of state to state, In which the individuals are 
enemies only by accident, and not as men, neither even 
as citizens, but as soldiers, — not exactly as members of 
the country, but as its defenders. In fine, every state can 
have as enemies only other states, and not men, on ac- 
count of the interference of things of diverse natures, 
which cannot fix any true relation. 

" This principle is even conformed to maxims established 
in all times, and to the constant practice of all civilized 
people. The declarations of war ai"e more as warnings 
to the powers than to their subjects. The stranger — 
either king, or individual, or people — who seizes, kills, 
or detains the subjects, without declaring the war to the 
ruler, is not an enemy, he is a brigand. 

" Even in open war, a just ruler seizes property in an 

(142) 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



143 



enemy's country, all that which belongs to the public ; 
but he respects the person and the property of the indi- 
vidual ; he respects the rights upon which his own are 
founded. 

"The intent of the war being the destruction of the hos- 
tile state, we have the right to kill the defenders so often 
as they have arms in their hands ; but as soon as they lay 
them down, and surrender, ceasing to be enemies, or in- 
struments of the enemy, they become again simpl}' men, 
and we have no longer a right to their lives. Sometimes 
we may destroy a state without killing a single one of its 
members ; but war does not confer any right which is not 
necessary to its end. 

" These principles are not those of Grotius : they are not 
founded upon the authorities of jDoets : but they are de- 
rived from the nature of things, and are founded upon 
reason. With regard to the right of conquest, it has no 
other foundation than the law of the most force. If war 
does not give to the conqueror the right to massacre the 
vanquished people, that right, which he has not, does not 
establish that to enslave. We have no more right to kill 
an enemy than to make him a slave. The right to en- 
slave does not then come from the right to kill. This is 
then an unjust exchange, to compel him to purchase life 
at the price of liberty, upon which we have no right. 

" In establishing the right of life and death upon the 
right of slavery, and the right to enslave upon the right 
of life and death, is it not clear that we fall into a wicked 
circle?" 



144 MARTYRIA, OR 



Says Mirabeau, in his beautiful essay on " Despotism," 
" Wc can destroy the life of a man for a frightful crime ; 
but that is not to appropriate my existence when it is 
forced from me. Consider, upon this subject, how absurd 
is the opinion of the pretended philosophers who have 
established force as title ; who have set up a right of con- 
quest, and recognized to the conquerors the legitimate 
power to grant life or put to death. 

" It is not true that the right of life and death, exercised 
by a man upon another man, has ever been anything else 
than an act of frenzy ; for your enemy reduced to slavery 
can be yet useful to 3'ou, provided you preserve his life, — 
and this is less than the right that he has upon you, and 
the relation which binds you together ; but the massacre 
of a man is nothing more than to dishonor and disgust 
humanity, * * * the right of life and death, * * * and 
what other has the Creator to exercise over our existence ? 

" From man to man the rights then are always respec- 
tive. Personal propriety cannot surrender itself, liberty 
cannot alienate itself. This first gift of nature is impre- 
scriptible ; and men, even in their delirium, cannot re- 
nounce it." 



" Opinion makes the law." If human laws are uncer- 
tain and contradictory, it is not the fault of nature, since 
man has invented or discovered rules in the science of 
physics which are constant and invariable, like those of 
geometry and chemistry. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 145 

Whatever renders the laws of society invariable, inop- 
erative, is due to the inherent weakness of their basis, 
and not to the eternal principles of truth and justice. 
All human laws must be founded on that fundamental 
and immutable law of nature, "Whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This 
precept of divine origin is the great balance of the human 
mind ; and it is the secret spring of the progress of na- 
tions, as well as the social development of individuals : 
for without this principle the world would be nothing but 
a vast arena, in which all classes of people would be ar- 
rayed against each other in deadly conflict ; impelled by 
the force oF passion and appetite, error and prejudice 
would soon banish the influence of truth and reason. 
The weaker families would soon be consumed by the 
stronger in the wars of avarice and religion. 

" The laws of nature," writes M. Regis, " are the dic- 
tates of right reason, which teach every man how he is to 
use his natural right ; and the laws of nations are the dic- 
tates, in like manner, of right reason, which teach every 
state how to act and behave themselves toward others." 

" As God," says Blackstone, " when he created matter, 
and endowed it with a principle of mobility, established 
certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion, 
so when he created man, and endued him with free will 
to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down cer- 
tain immutable laws of human nature whereby that free 
will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave 
him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of 
those laws." 

This law of nature being coeval with mankind, and 

7 



1^6 MARTYRIA, OR 

dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obliga- 
tion to any other. It is binding all over the globe, in all 
countries and at all times : no human laws are of any 
validity if contrary to this ; and such of them as are 
valid, derive all their force and all their authority, medi- 
ately or immediately, from this original. 

Human laws originate in the wisdom of man, and 
are designed to regulate their behavior to one another, 
and are enforced by human authority and worldly sanc- 
tions. 

The fear of punishment and revenge are not strong 
enough to control the lusts and passions of men. 

The true idea and comprehension of the majesty and 
mercy of the law is infused by the spirit of philosophy. 



IV. 

" The existence of states," says Montesquieu, " is like 
that of man, and the first have the I'ight to make war for 
their proper preservation ; the latter have the right to kill 
in the case of natural defence. In the case of natural 
defence I have the right to kill, since my life is my own, 
as the life of him who attacks me belongs to himself. * * * 
From the right of war follows that of conquest, which is 
the consequence : it ought then to follow the spirit. * * * 
It is clear when the conquest is made, the conqueror has 
no longer the right to kill, since he is no longer in the 
position of natural defence, or for his proper preserva- 
tion, 

" That which has made them think thus (right to kill), 
is that they have believed that the conqueror had the 



ANDEKSONVILLE PRISON. I^J 

right to destroy society, whence they have concluded that 
they had that to destroy the men who composed it, which 
is a false consequence extracted from a false principle. 
Because the society should perish, it does not follow that 
the men who form it ought also to perish. Society is a 
union of men, and not men : the citizen can perish and 
the man remain. From the right to kill in conquest, 
politics have derived the right to enslave ; bnt the conse- 
quence is as badly founded as the principle." 

There are certain rules that arise from the principle 
of self-preservation, and foi'm what Wolff calls " the vol- 
untary law of nations." "Hence it follows that all na- 
tions have a right to repel by force what openly violates 
the law of the society which nature has established 
among them, or that directly attacks the welfare and 
safety of that society. At the same time care must be 
taken not to extend this law to the prejudice of the lib- 
erty of nations." 

V. 

The right of jurisdiction belongs only to those societies 
which have united for the purpose of maintaining the 
natural rights of each individual. 

The ablest writers have maintained that society has not 
the right of life and death, and whoever arrogates that 
power commits a " divine lese inajeste." " The object, 
the interest, and the function of all government are, then, 
to maintain the harmony of society established upon the 
moral relations of justice, and upon the physical order 
that no human power can change, and to pi'otect all 
those who compose that society." Louis XI., that Tibe- 



148 MARTYRIA, OR 

rius of France, caused to be put to death more than four 
thousand persons, and nearly all without process of 
law. 

We see passionate men defending palpable errors with 
fanaticism and metaphysical temei'ity, as though they were 
divine dogmas. Thus Slavery would legalize frightful 
tyranny, and declare permanent proscriptions, with the 
same ease that it consigned thousands to starvation. " If 
liberty," says the author of the " Essai sur le Despotisme," 
" is the first of resorts for man. Slavery must alter all the 
sentiments, blunt all the sensations, and denaturalize them ; 
stifle all talent, blend all shades, corrupt all the ordei-s of 
state, and scatter discord, the germ of anarchy and revo- 
lutions. Man is only wicked when a superstitious insti- 
tution or a tyrannical government gives the example of 
ferocity, and supplies him with fear for motive and cu- 
pidity for passion. But it is necessary to distinguish with 
men the chai-acter acquired from natural inclination : we 
are, of all beings, the most susceptible of modifications, 
and above all, of extreme passions. An enslaved people 
are alwa3's vile : they can be wicked and cruel, because 
they are irritable, gloomy, and ignorant ; and when, 
although instruction will not be the only rampart of lib- 
erty against tyranny, it will always be the first safeguard 
of man against man ; but the slave is a mutilated 
man." 

Every writer will admit this whose pen is not enslaved 
by fear, or rendered venal by interest. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I49 

VI. 

The right of making prisoners of war, and depriving 
them of their liberty, and of the power and opportunity 
of farther resistance, is undoubted, for it is founded on the 
principles of security and self-defence. But when tlie 
soldier has laid down his arms, and submitted to the will 
of tne conqueror, the right of taking his life ceases, unless 
he should forfeit the right himself by some new crime ; 
and the savage errors of antiquity, in putting prisoners to 
death, have long been renounced by civilized nations.- 

Among the European states prisoners of war are sel- 
dom ill-treated ; and when the number of prisoners is so 
great as not to be fed, or kept with safety, it has been the 
custom to parole them, either for a certain length of time, 
or for the war. All authorities agree that they cannot be 
made slaves, although under certain circumstances they 
may be set at labor on the public fortifications and 
works. 

Prisoners of war are retained to prevent their returning 
to the field of conflict, and there are times when they may 
be detained and refused all ransom, when, for instance, it 
is obvious that the parole will not be regarded by the 
opposing commanders, and when their exchange would 
throw a preponderance of weight into the ranks of the 
antagonist. It would have been very dangerous for the 
Czar Peter the Great to have exchanged his Swedish pris- 
oners for an equal number of unequal Russians ; but 
whilst retained they were treated with kindness. 



I^O MARTYRIA, OR 



The rebel policy and system towards the Federal pris- 
oners, along the entire line, without exception, from 
Virginia to Texas, was one of stupendous atrocity. It 
was one of the most inhuman and monstrous that hate 
and tyranny ever invented. It was no less derogatory to 
human character than defiant to the principles of Chris- 
tianity ; but Christianity was unknown there. The gods 
of worship were the deities of the dark ages, and the 
fancied garlands of flowers that decorated their statues 
were nothing more than wreaths of Cyprus leaves. This 
stockade was the epitome and concentration of all earthly 
misery, to which the Bastile and the Inquisition offer but 
feeble comparisons, as prototypes, as models, as ideas, for 
the destruction of human life. 

In this we recognize the perversion of the natural sen- 
timents after two centuries of crime, the defiance of all 
honorable law, " the barbarism of slavery." 

What can we, in extenuation, ascribe to recklessness, 
what to ignorance? " There is," says the eloquent Rous- 
seau, " a brutal and ferocious ignorance, which s^Drings 
from a bad heart and a false spirit. A criminal igno- 
rance, which extends itself even to the duties of humanity ; 
which multiplies vices, which degrades reason, debases 
the soul, and renders man like the beasts." 

These men destroyed the strength, the lives of thou- 
sands, by stealthy means, and excused their consciences 
by the reflections of perverted nature : as Timour said to 
his victims, " It is you who assassinate your own souls ! " 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I5I 

VIII. 

It has been the custom, among European nations, to 
treat prisoners of war liberall}', and the expenses of 
maintaining them are paid by both sides at the close of 
the war. 

The British Parhament voted, in 17S0, to pay forty 
tliousand pounds sterhng to disinfect and improve the 
prison where the Spanish prisoners were confined, and 
where a fatal fever had declared itself. And there ai'e 
many instances where European powers have acted 
kindly and humanely towards those who had fallen 
into their power from hazaixl of battle. War was de- 
clared against states, and not against the individual 
subjects of those states. 

At all times, kindness to the unfortunate, and hospi- 
tality to strangers, has always been considered as a virtue 
of the first rank among people whose manners are simple, 
and who, uncontaminated by vices of a false and frivo- 
lous civilization, exhibit the natural qualities of the human 
race. Even among the darkness of the middle ages kind- 
ness was compulsory, and hospitality enforced by statute, 
and whoever denied succor to misery was liable to pun- 
ishment. '• Qiiicunque hospiti venienti lectum aut focum 
negaverit trium solidorum in latione mulctetur." (Leg. 
Burgund., tit. 38, §1.) 

The laws of the Slavi ordained that the movables of 
an inhospitable person should be confiscated, and his 
house burned. 



152 MARTYRIA, OR 



In comparison with these humane provisions, how ter- 
ribly contrasted are the modes of treatment as practised 
by the rebel authorities upon the Federal soldiers ! " Let 
us hoist the black flag, and kill every prisoner," said one 
of the cabinet officers. " I will sell my wheat," said 
another cabinet officer, " to my fellow-citizens, at exorbi- 
tant prices." " My God," said a poor woman, " how can 
I pay such prices ! I have seven children ? What shall I 
do? " " I do not know^, madam," was the brutal answer, 
" unless you eat them." 

When such sentiments prevailed at Richmond, what 
could be expected in kindness by those who were looked 
upon with hatred and as worthy of death? 

In the revolutionary times of .177^ there was no brutal 
treatment of prisoners of war by Americans. Washing- 
ton was extremely solicitous that no act of barbarity 
should stain the sanctity of the cause. In a letter of 
May II, 1776, Washington wrote to the President of 
Congress, recommending that measures be adopted to 
secure for prisoners of war the most humane treatment ; 
and again to the Massachusetts Committee, February 6, 
1776, he wrote, recommending that captives should be 
treated with humanity and kindness. The Continental 
Congress passed a resolution in 1 776 that all taken with 
arms be treated as prisoners of war, but with humanity, 
and allowed the same rations as the troops in the service 
of the United States. 



ANDERSOW^ILLE PRISON. I53 



The United States Government adopted the following 
rules in 1863 for the guidance of our armies, and pub- 
lished them in General Order, No. 100, April 24 : — 
* * * * 

II. The law of war not only disclaims all cruelty and 
bad faith concerning engagements concluded with the 
enemy during the war, but also the breaking of stipula- 
^ tions solemnly contracted by the belligerents in time of 
peace, and avowedly intended to remain in force in case 
of war between the contracting powers. 

It disclaims all extortions and other transactions for 
individual gain ; all acts of private revenge, or con- 
nivance at such acts. 

Offences to the contrary shall be severely punished, 
and especially so if committed by officers. 

14. Militaiy necessity, as understood by modern civil- 
ized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures 
which are indispensable for securing the ends of war, and 
which are lawful according to the modern law and usages 
of war. 

15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction 
of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons 
whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the 

. armed contests of the war ; it allows of the capturing 
of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance 
to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the 
captor ; it allows of all destruction of property, and 
obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, 
or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance 



154 MARTYRIA, OR 

or means of life from the enemy ; of the appropriation 
of whatever an enemy's country aflbrds necessary for the 
safety and subsistence of the army, and of such deception 
as does not involve the breaking of good faith, either 
positively j^ledged regarding agreements entered into 
during the vv^ar, or supposed by the modern law of war 
to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in 
public war do not cease on this account to be moral 
beings, responsible to one another and to God. 

i6. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty, — that 
is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or 
revenge, — nor of maiming or wounding, except in fight, 
nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit 
of the use of poison in an}' way, nor of the wanton 
devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but dis- 
dains acts of perfidy ; and, in general, military necessity 
does not include any act of hostility which renders the 
return to peace unnecessarily difficult. 

27. The law of war can no more wholly dispense with 
retaliation than can the law of nations, of which it is a 
branch ; yet civilized nations acknowledge retaliation as 
the sternest feature of ^var. A reckless enemy often 
leaves to his opponents no other means of securing 
himself against the repetition of barbarous outrage. 

28. Retaliation will, therefore, never be resorted to as 
a measure of mere revenge, but only as a means of pro- 
tective retribution, and cautiously and unavoidably ; that 
is to say, retaliation shall only be resorted to after careful 
inquiry into the real occurrence and the character of the 
misdeeds that may demand retribution. 

33. It is no longer considered lawful — on the contrary 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 1 55 

it is held to be a serious breach of the law of war — to 
force the subjects of the enemy into the service of the 
victorious government, except the latter should proclaim, 
after a fair and complete conquest of the hostile country 
or district, that it is resolved to keep the country, district, 
or place permanently as its own, and make it a portion 
of its own country. 

49. A prisoner of war is a public enemy, armed or at- 
tached to the hostile army for active aid, who has fallen 
into the hands of the captor, either fighting or wounded, 
on the field or in the hospital, by individual surrender or 
by capitulation. 

52. No belligerent has the right to declare that' he will 
treat every captured man in arms, of a levy en masse, as a 
brigand or bandit. * * * 

56, A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for 
being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon 
him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or dis- 
grace by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, 
death, or any other barbarity. 

57. So soon as a man is armed by a sovereign govern- 
ment, and takes the soldier's oath of fidelity, he is a bel- 
ligerent ; his killing, wounding, or other warlike acts are 
no individual crime or offence. * * * 

67. The law of nations allows every sovereign govern- 
ment to make war upon another sovereign state, and 
therefore admits of no rules or laws different from those 
of regular warfare regarding the treatment of prisoners 
of war, although they may belong to the army of a gov- 
ernment which the captor may consider as a wanton and 
unjust assailant. 



156 MARTYRIA, OR 

The use of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells, 
or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern war- 
fare. He that uses it puts himself out of the pale of the 
laws and usages of war. 

71. Whoever intentionally inflicts additional wounds 
on an enemy alread}^ wholly disabled, or kills such an 
enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall 
suffer death if duly convicted, whether he belongs to the 
army of the United States, or is an enemy captured after 
having committed his misdeed. 

73. Money and other valuables on the person of a pris- 
oner, such as watches or jewelry, as well as extra 
clothing, are regarded by the American army as the 
private property of the prisoners, and the appropriation 
of such valuables or money is considered dishonorable, 
and is prohibited. 

74. A prisoner of war, being a public enemy, is the 
prisoner of the government and not of the captor. No 
ransom can be paid by a prisoner of war to his individual 
captor or to any officer in command. The government 
alone releases captives, according to rules prescribed by 
itself. 

75. Pi'isonei's of war are subject to confinement or im- 
prisonment, such as may be deemed necessary on account 
of safety, but they are to be subjected to no other inten- 
tional suffering or indignity. The confinement and mode 
of treating a prisoner may be varied during his captivity, 
according to the demands of safety. 

76. Prisoners of war shall be fed upon plain and whole- 
some food whenever practicable, and treated with humani- 
ty. They may be required to work for the benefit of the 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I57 

captor's government, according to their rank and con- 
dition. 

77. A prisoner of war who escapes, may be shot or 
otherwise killed in his flight, but neither death nor any 
other punishment shall be inflicted upon liim, simply for 
his attempt to escape, wliich the law of war does not con- 
sider a crime. Stricter means of security shall be used 
after an unsuccessful attempt at escape. * * « 

109. The exchange of prisoners of war is an act of 
convenience to both belligerents. If no general cartel 
has been concluded it cannot be demanded by either of 
them. No belligerent is obliged to exchange prisoners 
of war. A cartel is voidable as soon as either party has 
\'iolated it. 

119. Prisoners of war may be released from captivity 
by exchange and under certain circumstances, also by 
jDarole. 

120. The term parole designates the pledge of individ- 
ual good faith and honor to do, or to omit doing, certain 
acts after he who gives his parole shall have been dis- 
missed wholly or partially from the power of the captor. 

121. The pledge of the parole is always an individual 
but not a private act. 

133. No prisoner of war can be forced by the hostile 
government to parole himself, and no government Is 
obliged to parole prisoners of war, or to parole all cap- 
tured officers, if it paroles any. As the pledging of the 
parole is an individual act, so is paroling, on the other 
hand, an act of choice on the part of the belligerent. 



I5S MARTYRIA, OR 

XI. 

From the evidence obtained from different souixes, and 
from the results, it may be properly reasoned that there 
was a secret and fixed intent on the part of the cabal at 
Richmond to weaken the Federal armies by destroying 
the prisoners by starvation and exposure. 

The open robbery of all the captives, the neglect of 
the commissariat when there was no excuse, the refusal 
to remedy atrocious evils, all betray malice and design. 
That intrepid and humane officer. Colonel Chandler, 
made complaint of this prison, in his Ins2Dection Report, 
as early as July 5, 1864, when he uses the following lan- 
guage : "No shelter whatever, nor materials . for con- 
structing an}^, had been provided by the prison authori- 
ties, and the ground being entirely bare of trees, none is 
within reach of the prisoners ; nor has it been possible, 
from the overcrowded state of the enclosure, to arrange 
the cainp with any system. Each man has been permit- 
ted to protect himself as best he can, by stretcliing his 
blanket, or whatever he may have about him, on such 
sticks as he can procure. Of other shelter there has been 
none. There is no medical attendance within the stock- 
ade. Many (twenty yesterday) are carted out daily who 
have died from unknown causes, and whom the medical 
officers have never seen. The dead are hauled out by the 
wagon-load, and buried without coffins, their hands, in 
many instances, being first mutilated with an axe in the 
rem^oval of any -inger-rings they may have. Raw rations 
have to be issued to a very large portion, who are en- 
tirely unprovided with proper utensils, and furnished so 



AJVDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



159 



limited a supply of fuel they are compelled to dig with 
their hands in the filthy marsh before mentioned for roots, 
&c. No soa^D or clothing have ever been issued. After 
inquir}^, the writer is confident that, with slight exertions, 
green corn and other anti-scorbutics could readily be ob- 
tained. The present hospital an-angemcnts were onlv in- 
tended for the accommodation of ten thousand men, and 
are totally insufficient, both in character and extent, for 
the present need, — the number of prisoners being now 
more than three times as great. The number of cases 
requiring medical treatment is in an increased ratio. It 
is impossible to state the number of sick, many dving 
within the stockade whom the medical officers have never 
seen or heard of till their remains are brought out for in- 
terment." 

Later reports were made by this inspector, and they 
were forwarded to the rebel executive, indorsed by the as- 
sisant-secretaiy of war, Campbell, that this condition was 
a reproach to the Confederates as a nation. But not the 
least notice was taken of these startling and heart-rending 
revelations, in which Winder was denounced as a mur- 
derer from the statements made by Winder himself. The 
wretch and the system of treatment were denotmced by 
Stephens of South Carolina, by Foote of Tennessee ; yet 
no response was obtained from the secretary of war, or 
from the executive, Davis. When Breckenridge became 
secretary of war, shortly before the downfall of the re- 
bellion, the brave Chandler demanded that some notice, 
some action, should be taken on the reports he had sub- 
mitted months before, or he would resign his commission ; 
for his honor and humanity were involved. 



l6o MARTYRIA, OR 

What action was taken, if any thei'e was, is not known 
to the writer. The thanks of the South, the kind wishes 
of all who honor the warm and generous impulses of our 
better nature, are due to the noble Chandler, who had the 
courage, the temerity, to expose the suffering condition at 
Andersonville, and to denounce the authors again and 
again at the peril of his life. 

It is known to the writer that Surgeons Bemis and Flu- 
ellen, of the rebel army medical staff, inspected the con- 
dition of the prison, and protested against the cruel man- 
agement. 

One of the chief medical officers of the rebel army of 
the South informed the author that the medical men at 
this prison were without any influence whatever ; and al- 
though the prison was within his department for a time, 
he had no more voice or influence in its management than 
the man in the moon ; and that everything relating to 
the prison was controlled and devised by the atitJiorities 
at Richmond. 

The refusal or the neglect of the rebel authorities, to 
whom these reports were submitted, to take notice of or 
remedy the exposed evils, is a tacit acknowledgment and 
approval of the system at work. 



XII. 

Northrop, the rebel commissary-general, whom Foote 
denounced in the rebel Congress as a monster, and incom- 
petent, urged the secretary of war, vSeddon, to reduce 
the rations to gruel and bread, in retaliation for alleged 
abuses to the rebel prisoners in our hands. Seddon de- 



AXDERSONA'ILLE PRISON. l6l 

clined to do it openly, on account of the technicalities of 
the law ; but Northrop took the measure quietly into his 
own hands, and withheld meat so often and so long from 
the prisoners near Richmond as to call forth a yell of 
remonstrance from even the inhuman Winder. 

When the prisoners at Belle Isle — numbering from 
eight to thirteen thousand — were deprived of meat, — 
from the incompetency or the wilfulness of the conmiis- 
sary-general, — for a fortnight at a time, the secretary of 
war refused to allow compassionate parties to buy cattle 
in the neighborhood of the city, and bring them to the 
prison, stating that Northrop had informed him that the 
prisoners fared as well as the soldiers. 

And in pursuance of this diabolical plan of starvation, 
orders were given, in December, by the rebel war de- 
partment, that no more supplies should be received from 
the United States for the prisoners, for which no apology 
or reason was ever given. 

Winder was denounced by members of Congress ; but 
Davis took no notice, because he was his personal friend. 
vSeddon took sides with Northrop, and would not allow 
Captain Warner to buy cattle for the prisoners around 
Richmond, as he offered to do, and relieve their sufler- 
ings. 

The postmaster-general wanted to kill the prisoners 
taken in raiding ; and Seddon, the secretary of war, 
stated that he was always in fovor of fighting under the 
black flag. 

When Chandler made his report, Cobb was writing 
that all was going on well at the prison. Colonel Persons, 
who was the first conunander, and relieved by Winder, 



1 62 MARTYRIA, OR 

applied for an injunction against tlie prison as a nuisance. 
No' compassion, humanity, or decency was observed in 
the demand for the process : it was simply a nuisance, 
and dangerous to the health of the surrounding region. 
No plea was made that thousands were being murdered 
there. 

XIII. 

It is known, and proved beyond " cavil of a doubt," 
that the prisoners were robbed of all articles of value, 
even hats, coats, blankets, and shoes, and that no attempt 
was made to restore them, or to supply any deficiency 
that arose from this rapacious dishonesty. 

In striking contrast with this " barbarism of slavery," 
notice the treatment in our own prisons, where all need- 
ful clothing and blankets were issued to- the rebel pris- 
oners, whenever their circumstances required it ; and 
during the period of rebellion, a vast quantity of coats, 
blankets, stockings, shirts, and drawers were supplied by 
the quartermaster's department. Thirty-five thousand 
articles of clothing were issued in eight months to the 
rebel prisoners at Fort Delaware alone. Of the many 
thousand rebel wounded and sick prisoners in our hands, 
who have been under the observation of the writer during 
the war, all, without exception, were treated with kind- 
ness, and the wants of all supplied in the same manner as 
with our men. 

In the Dartmoor prison, the British allowed to each of 
our men a hammock, a blanket, a horse rug, and a bed 
containing four pounds of flocks ; and every eighteen 
months one woollen cap, one yellow jacket, one pair of 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 163 

pantaloons, and one waistcoat of the same material as 
allowed to the British army ; and also, every nine months, 
one pair of shoes, and one shirt. The prison was in- 
spected by the chief surgeon of England, and whenever 
complaint was made by the prisoners, the admiralty sent 
officers of high rank to investigate the causes of com- 
plaint. The officers of the prison hulks in England be- 
haved generally with kindness and humanity to our men, 
as is shown by the records of the captivity. 

But even this treatment, humane as it appears when 
compared with the rebel system, was less generous than 
that bestowed by the Algerine pirates upon our sailors 
captured by them. The captives in Algiers received 
good and abundant vegetable food, and were lodged in 
airy places. 

XIV. 

This system of barbarity of the rebels towards their 
prisoners having become known to the United States 
government, efforts were made to ameliorate the con- 
dition of the suffering men, but without avail. 
/Measures of retaliation were entertained by Congress, 
in hopes of effecting a change by the clamors from the 
rebel prisoners themselves, and the following resolutions 
were introduced by Mr. Wade, of Ohio, but they were 
not adopted : — ^^^ 

Joint Resolution, advising Retaliation for the Cruel 
Treatment of Prisoners by the Insui'gents. 

W/iereas, It has come to the knowledge of Congress 
that great numbers of our soldiers, who have fallen as 



164 MARTYRIA, OR 

prisoners of war into the hands of the insurgents, have 
been subjected to treatment unexampled for cruelty in the 
history of civilized war, and finding its parallels only in 
the conduct of savage tribes ; a treatment resulting in the 
death of multitudes by the slow but designed process of 
starvation, and by mortal diseases occasioned by insuffi- 
cient and unhealthy food, by wanton exposure of their 
persons to the inclemency of the weather, and by delib- 
erate assassination of unoffending men ; and the murder, 
in cold blood, of prisoners after surrender ; and, whereas 
a continuance of these barbarities, in contempt of the 
laws of war, and in disregard of the remonstrances of 
the national authorities, has presented to us the alterna- 
tive of suffering our brave soldiers thus to be destroyed, 
or to apply the principle of retaliation for their protec- 
tion : Therefore, 

Resolved^ by the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives of the United States of America, in Congress as- 
sembled, That, in the judgment of Congress, it has 
become justifiable and necessary that the President should, 
in order to j^revent the continuance and recurrence of 
such barbarities, and to insure the observance by the in- 
surgents of the laws of civilized war, resort at once to 
measures of retaliation. That, in our opinion, such re- 
taliation ought to be inflicted upon the insurgent officers 
now in our hands, or hereafter to fall into our hands, as 
prisoners ; that such officers ought to be subjected to like 
treatment practised towards our officers or soldiers in the 
hands of the insurgents, in respect to quantity and quality 
of food, clothing, fuel, medicine, medical attendance, per- 
sonal exposure, or other mode of dealing with them ; that, 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 165 

with a view to the same ends, the insurgent prisoners in 
our hands ought to be placed under the control and in 
the keeping of officers and men who have themselves, 
been prisoners in the hands of the insurgents, and have 
thus acquired a knowledge of their mode of treating 
Union prisoners ; that explicit instructions ought to be 
given to the forces having the charge of such insurgent 
prisoners, requiring them to carry out strictly and 
promptly the principles of this resolution in every case, 
until the President, having received satisfactory informa- 
tion of the abandonment by the insurgents of such barba- 
rous practices, shall revoke or modify said instructions. 
Congress do not, however, intend by this resolution to 
limit or restrict the power of the President to the modes 
or principles of retaliation herein mentioned, but only to 
advise a resort to them as demanded by the occasion. 

Mr. Sumner offered the following Resolutions as a sub- 
stitute for the Resolution of the Committee : — 

Resolved^ That retaliation is harsh always, even in 
the simplest cases, and is permissible only where, in the 
first place, it may reasonably be expected to effect its 
object, and where, in the second place, it is consistent 
with the usages of civilized society ; and that, in the 
absence of these essential conditions, it is a useless bar- 
barism, having no other end than vengeance, which is 
forbidden alike to nations and to men. 

Resolved^ That the treatment of our officers and sol- 
diers in rebel prisons is cruel, savage, and heart-rending 
beyond all precedent ; that it is shocking to morals ; that 
it is an offence against human nature itself; that it adds 



1 66 MARTYRIA, OR 

new guilt to the great crime of the rebellion, and consti- 
tutes an example from which history will turn with 
sorrow and disgust. 

Resolved^ That any attempted imitation of rebel bar- 
barism in the treatment of prisoners would be plainly 
impracticable, on account of its inconsistency with the 
prevailing sentiments of humanity among us ; that it 
would be injurious at home, for it would barbarize the 
whole community ; that it would be utterly useless, for it 
could not affect the cruel authors of the revolting conduct 
which we seek to overcome ; that it would be immoral, 
inasmuch as it proceeded from vengeance alone ; that it 
could have no other result than to degrade the national 
character and the national name, and to bring down upon 
our country the I'eprobation of history ; and that, being 
thus impracticable, useless, immoral, and degrading, it 
must be rejected as a measure of retaliation, pi-ecisely as 
the barbarism of roasting or eating prisoners is always 
rejected by civilized powers. 

Resolved^ That the United States, filled with grief 
and sympathy for cherished citizens, who, as officers 
and soldiers, have become the victims of Heaven-defying 
cuti-age, hereby declare their solemn determination to put 
an end to this great iniquity by putting an end to the 
rebellion of which it is the natural fruit ; that to secure 
this humane and righteous consummation, they pledge 
anew their best energies and all the resources of the 
whole people, and they call upon all to bear witness that, 
in this necessary warfare with barbarism, they renounce 
all vengeance and every evil example, and plant them- 
selves firmly on the sacred landmarks of Christian civili- 



AXDERSONVILLE PRISON. 167 

. zation, undei* the protection of that God who is present 
with every prisoner, and enables heroic souls to suffer for 
their country. 



The pathetic letter, which was composed by the suf- 
fering and dying men at Andersonville, and addressed to 
the President in August, 1S64, and forwarded by the 
prisoners who were sent to Charleston, led to renewed 
efforts on the part of the United States government ; but 
no notice was taken by the rebel authorities of the plea 
in behalf of humanity. The following letter is said to be 
the one sent to the President : — 

The jSIeniorial of the Union Prisoiiers conjincd at 
Andersonville^ Georgia^ to the President of the 
United States. 

Confederate States Prison, 
Charleston, S. C, Aiig., 1864. 

To THE President of the United States : 

The condition of the enlisted men belonging to the 

Union armies, now prisoners to the Confederate rebel 

forces, is such that it becomes our duty, and the duty of 

every commissioned officer, to make known the facts in 

the case to the government of the United States, and to 

use every honorable effort to secure a general exchange 

of prisoners, thcreb}' relieving thousands of our comrades 

from the horror now surrounding them. 

For some time past there has been a concentration of 

prisoners from all parts of the rebel territory to the State 

of Georgia — the commissioned officers being confined at 

Macon, and the enlisted men at Andersonville. 



1 68 MARTYRIA, OR 

Recent movements of the Union armies under General 
Sherman have compelled the removal of prisoners to 
other points, and it is now understood that they ^^•ill be 
removed to Savannah, Georgia, and Columbus and Charles- 
ton, South Carolina. But no change of this kind holds 
out any prospect of relief to our poor men. Indeed, as 
the localities selected are far more unhealthy, there must 
be an increase rather than a diminution of suffering. 

Colonel Hill, provost-marshal general Confederate 
States army, at Atlanta, stated to one of the undersigned 
that there were thirty-five thousand prisoners at Ander- 
sonville, and by all accounts from the United States sol- 
diers who have been confined tJiere, the number is not 
overstated by him. These thirty-five thousand are con- 
fined in a field of some thirty acres, enclosed by a board 
fence, heavily guarded. About one third have various 
kinds of indifferent shelter, but upwards of thirty thou- 
sand are wholly without shelter, or even shade of any 
kind, and are exposed to the storms and rains which are 
of almost daily occurrence, the cold dews of the night, 
and the more terrible effects of the sun striking with al- 
most tropical fierceness upon their unprotected heads. 
This mass of men jostle and crowd each other up and 
down the limits of their enclosure in storms or sun, and 
others lie down upon the pitiless earth at night with no 
other covering than the clothing upon their backs, few of 
them having even a blanket. 

Upon entering the prison every man is deliberately 
stripped of money and other property, and as no clothing 
or blankets are ever supplied to their prisoners by the 
rebel authorities, the condition of the apparel of the sol- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 169 

diers, just from an active campaign, can be easily im- 
agined. Thousands are without pants or coats, and 
hundreds without even a pair of drawers to cover their 
nakedness. 

To these men, as indeed to all prisoners, there are issued 
three quarters of a pound of bread or meal, and one eighth 
of a pound of meat, per day. This is the entire ration, 
and upon it the prisoner must live or die. The meal is 
often unsifted and sour, and the meat such as in the North 
is consigned to the soap-maker. Such are the rations 
upon which Union soldiers are fed by the rebel authori- 
ties, and by which they are barely holding on to life. 
But to starvation, and exposure to sun and storm, add the 
sickness which prevails to a most alarming and terrible 
extent. On an average, one hundred die daily. It is 
impossible that any Union soldiei's should know all the 
facts pertaining to this terrible mortality, as they are not 
paraded by the rebel authorities. Such statement as the 

following, made by , speaks eloquent testimony. 

Said he, " Of twelve of us who were captured, six died, 
four are in the hospital, and I never expect to see them 
again. There are but two of us left." 

In 1862, at Montgomery, Alabama, under far more 
fiworable circumstances, the prisoners being protected by 
sheds, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred were 
sick from diarrhoea and chills out of seven hundred. 
The same percentage would give seven thousand sick at 
Andersonville. 

It needs no comment, no efforts at w^ord-painting, to 
make such a picture stand out boldly in most horrible 
colors. 

8 



lyo MARTYRIA, OR 

Nor is this all. Among the ill-fated of the many who 
have suffered amputation in consequence of injuries re- 
ceived before capture, sent from rebel hospitals before 
their w^ounds were healed, there ai*e eloquent witnesses 
of the barbarities of which they are victims. If to these 
facts is added this, that nothing more demoralizes soldiers 
and develops the evil passions of man than starvation, 
the terrible condition of Union prisoners at Andersonville 
can be readily imagined. They are fast losing hope and 
becoming utterly reckless of life. 

Numbers, crazed by their sufferings, wander about in a 
state of idiocy ; others deliberately cross the " dead line," 
and are remorselessly shot down. 

In behalf of these men we most earnestly appeal to 
the President of the United States. Few of them have 
been captured, except in the front of battle, in the deadly 
encounter, and only when overpowered by numbers. 
They constitute as gallant a portion of our armies as 
carry our banners anywhere. If released, they would 
soon return to again do vigorous battle for our cause. 
We are told that the only obstacle in the way of exchange 
is the status of enlisted negroes captured from our armies, 
the United States claiming that the cartel covers all who 
who serve under its flag, and the Confederate States 
refusing to consider the colored soldiers, heretofore slaves, 
as prisoners of war. 

We beg leave to suggest some facts bearing upon the 
question of exchange, which we would vu-ge upon this 
consideration. Is it not consistent with the national 
honor, without waiving the claim that the negro soldiers 
shall be treated as prisoners of war, to effect an exchange 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I^I 

of the white soldiers? The two classes are treated dif- 
ferently by the enemy. The whites are confined in suck 
prisons as Libby and Andersonville, starved and treated 
with a barbarism unknown to civilized nations. The 
blacks, on the contrary, are seldom imprisoned. They 
are distributed among the citizens, or employed on 
government works. Under these circumstances they 
receive enough to eat, and are worked no harder than 
they have been accustomed to be. They are neither 
starved nor killed oft' by the pestilence in the dungeons 
of Riclimond and Charleston. It is true they are again 
made slaves ; but their slaveiy is freedom and happiness 
compared with the cruel existence imposed upon our 
gallant men. They are not bereft of hope, as are the 
white soldiers, dying by piecemeal. Their chances of 
escape are tenfold greater than those of the white sol- 
diers, and their condition, in all its lights, is tolerable in 
comparison with that of the prisoners of war now lan- 
guisliing in the dens and pens of secession. 

While, therefore, believing the claims of our govern- 
ment, in matters of exchange, to be just, we are pro- 
foundly impressed with the conviction that the circum- 
stances of the two classes of soldiers are so widely differ- 
ent that the government can honorably consent to an 
exchange, waiving for a time the established principle 
justly claimed to be applicable in the case. Let thirty- 
five thousand suffering, starving, and enlisted men aid 
this appeal. By prompt and decided action in their 
behalf, thirty-five thousand heroes will be made happy. 
For the eighteen hundred commissioned officers nov\^ pris- 
oners we urge nothing:. Although desirous of returning 



1^3 MARTYRIA, OR 

to our duty, we can bear imprisonment with more forti- 
tude if the enlisted men, whose sufferings we know to be 
intolerable, were restored to liberty and life. 



XVI. 

The threatening manoeuvres of Sherman alone caused 
the rebel authorities to diminish the number of inmates 
of this stockade, and thereby lessen the dangers of recap- 
ture, and remove the temptation to the United States 
authorities to make an effort for their rescue. It has 
been stated that the rebels were anxious to exchange pris- 
oners, man for man, and that the obstructions were caused 
by the Federal authorities, and that Mr. Stanton, in par- 
ticular, was responsible for the stoppage of exchange and 
the consequent death of so many thousands of our fellow- 
citizens detained in the rebel prisons. 

General Hitchcock, the United States commissioner 
of exchange, however, denies most emphatically that Mr. 
Stanton was any way responsible for the refusal to make 
exchanges, man for man, officer for officer, according to 
grade, and he makes the following statement : " At no 
instance within my knowledge did Mr. Stanton refuse to 
acquiesce in any proposition looking to that result. There 
is not in my office, nor have I ever seen such a proposi- 
tion from a rebel commissioner or the rebel authorities. 
Nor have I any reason to believe that any such proposi- 
tion was ever made by Judge Ould, or any of his supe- 
riors, except in a letter from Judge Ould addressed to 
Major Mulford, which fell into the hands of Major- 
General Butler. This is true, emphatically, as a protec- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 1 73 

tion against the accusations levelled at Mr. Stanton. 
***** Mr. Stanton has not only 
been willing, but anxious to make exchanges referred to, 
as I have abundant means of showing by indisputable 
documents, the aim and purpose of Judge Ould was to 
draw from us all of the rebel prisoners held in exchange 
for white troops of the United States held as prisoners in 
the South, persistently refusing to exchange colored troops 
to a very late date ; when, to carry a special purpose, he 
receded so far as to agree to exchange free colored men, 
leaving the general principle where it was on his side 
against the just claims of a large body of colored prison- 
ers held in the South." 



XVII. 



The following letter from General Butler to the rebel 
commissioner of exchange will throw some light upon 
the subject, and give an idea as to whom the blame of 
non-exchange and non-intercourse belongs : — 

Letter of Major- General Butler^ United States Com- 
missioner of Excha7ige^ to Colonel Ould^ the Confed- 
erate CommissioJier. 

Headquaktees Department of Virginia and North ) 
Carolina, in the Field, August, 1864.' ) 

Hon. Robert Ould, Commissioner of Exchange. 

Sir: Your note to Major Mulford, assistant agent 
of exchange, under date of loth August, has been re- 
ferred to me. 

You therein state that Major Mulford has several times 



"174 MARTYRIA, OR 

proposed " to exchange prisoners respectively held by the 
two belligerents — officer for officer, and man for man," 
and that " the offer has also been made by other officials 
having charge of matters connected v^ith the exchange 
of prisoners," and that " this proposal has been hereto- 
fore declined by the Confederate authorities." That you 
now " consent to the above proposition, and agree to 
deliver to yovx (Major Mulford) the prisoners held in cap- 
tivity by the Confederate authorities, provided you agree 
to deliver an equal number of officers and men. As equal 
numbers are delivered from time to time they will be 
declared exchanged. This proposal is made with the 
understanding that the officers and men on both sides 
who have been longest in captivity will be first delivered, 
where it is practicable." 

From a slight ambiguity in your phraseology, but more 
perhaps from the antecedent action of your authorities, 
and because of your acceptance of it, I am in doubt 
whether you have stated the proposition with entire 
accuracy. 

It is true, a proposition was made both by Major Mul- 
ford and mj'Self, as agent of exchange, to exchange all 
prisoners of war taken by either belligerent party, man 
for man, officer for officer, of equal rank, or their equiva- 
lents. It was made by mc as early as the first of the win- 
ter of 1S63-4, and has not been accepted. In May last 
I forwarded to you a note, desiring to know whether the 
Confederate authorities intended to treat colored soldiers 
of the United States army as prisoners of w^ar. To that 
inquiry no answer has yet been made. To avoid all pos- 
sible misapprehension or mistake hereafter as to your 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



175 



offer now, will you now say whether you mean by " pris- 
oners held in captivity " colored men, duly enrolled, and 
mustered into the service of the United States, who have 
been captured by the Confederate forces ; and if your 
authorities are willing to exchange all soldiers so mustered 
into the United States army, whether colored or other- 
wise, and the officers commanding them, man for man, 
officer for officer? 

At the interview which was held between yourself and 
the agent of exchange on the part of the United States 
at Fortress Monroe, in March last, you will do me the 
favor to remember the principal discussion turned upon 
this very point; you, on behalf of the Confederate gov- 
ernment, claiming the right to hold all negroes who had 
heretofore been slaves, and not emancipated by their mas- 
ters, enrolled and mustered into the service of the United 
States, when captured by your forces, not as prisoners of 
war, but upon capture to be turned over to their supposed 
masters or claimants, whoever they might be, to be held 
by them as slaves. 

By the advertisements in 3our newspapers, calling upon 
masters to come forward and claim these men so cap- 
tured, I suppose that your authorities still adhere to that 
claim — that is to say, that whenever a colored soldier of 
the United States is captured by you, upon whom any 
claim can be made by any person residing within the 
States now in insurrection, such soldier is not to be treated 
as a prisoner of war, but is to be turned over to his sup- 
posed owner or claimant, and put at such labor or service 
as that owner or claimant may choose, and the officers in 
command of such soldiers, in the language of a supposed 



176 MARTYRIA, OR 

act of the Confederate States, are to be turned over to the 
governors of States, upon requisitions, for the purpose of 
being punished by the laws of such States for acts done 
in w^ar in the armies of the United States. 

You must be aware that there is still a proclamation 
by Jefferson Davis, claiming to be chief executive of the 
Confederate States, declaring in substance that all officers 
of colored troops mustered into the service of the United 
States were not to be treated as prisoners of war, but 
were to be turned over for punishment to the governors 
of States. 

I am reciting these public acts from memory, and will 
be pardoned for not giving the exact words, although I 
believe I do not vary the substance and effect. 

These declarations on the part of those whom you rep- 
resent yet remain vuirepealed, unannulled, unrevoked, and 
must therefore be still supposed to be authoritative. 

By your acceptance of our proposition, is the govern- 
ment of the United States to understand that these several 
claims, enactments, and proclaimed declarations are to be 
given up, set aside, revoked, and held for nought by the 
Confederate authorities, and that you are ready and willing 
to exchange, man for man, those colored soldiers of the 
United States, duly mustered and enrolled as such, who 
have heretofore been claimed as slaves by the Confederate 
States, as well as white soldiers ? 

If this be so, and you are so willing to exchange these 
colored men claimed as slaves, and you will so ofliciall}' 
inform the government of the United States, then, as I 
am instructed, a principal difficulty in effecting exchanges 
will be removed. 



ANDERSOXVILLE PRISON. 



177 



As I informed you personally, in my judgment it is 
neither consistent with the policy, dignity, or honor of the 
United States, upon any consideration, to allow those 
who. by our laws solemnly enacted, are made soldiers of 
the Union, and wdio have been duly enlisted, enrolled, 
and mustered as such soldiers, who have borne arms in 
behalf of this country, and who have been captured while 
fighting in vindication of the rights of that country, not 
to be treated as prisoners of war, and remain imchanged 
and in the service of those who claim them as masters; 
and I cannot believe that the government of the United 
States will ever be found to consent to so gross a wrong. 

Pardon me if I misunderstand you in supposing that 
your acceptance of our proposition does not in good faith 
mean to include all the soldiers of the Union, and that 
you still intend, if your acceptance is agreed to, to hold 
the colored soldiers of the Union unexchanged, and at 
labor or service, because I am informed that very lately, 
almost contemporaneously with this ofier on your part to 
exchange prisoners, and wdiich seems to include all pris- 
oners of war, the Confederate authorities have made a 
declaration that the negroes heretofore held to service by 
owners in the States of Delaware, Maryland, and Mis- 
souri are to be treated as prisoners of war, when cap- 
tured in arms in the service of the United States. 

Such declaration that a part of the colored soldiers of 
the United States w^ere to be prisoners of war, would 
seem most strongly to imply that others were not to be 
so treated, or, in other words, that the colored men from 
the insurrectionary States are to be held to labor and re- 
turned to their masters, if captured by the Confederate 
S* 



178 MARTVRIA, OR 

forces while duly enrolled and mustered into and actu- 
ally in the armies of the United States. 

In the view which the government of the United States 
takes of the claim made by you to the persons and ser- 
vices of these negroes, it is not to be supported upon any 
principle of national and municipal law. 

Looking upon these men only as property upon your 
theory of property in them, we do not see how this claim 
can be made, certainly not how it can be yielded. It is 
believed to be a well-settled rule of public international law, 
and a custom and part of the laws of war, that the capture 
of movable property vests the title to that property in the 
captor, and therefore where one belligerent gets into full 
possession property belonging to the subjects or citizens 
of the other belligerent, the owner of that projoerty is at 
once divested of his title, which rests in the belligerent 
government capturing and holding such possessions. 
Upon this rule of international law all civilized nations 
have acted, and by it both belligerents have dealt with all 
property, save slaves, taken from each other during the 
present war. 

If the Confederate forces capture a number of horses 
from the United States, the animals are claimed to be, 
and, as we understand it, become 'the property of the 
Confederate authorities. 

If the United States capture any movable proj^erty in 
the i-ebellion, by our regulations and laws, in conformity 
with international law and the laws of war, such prop- 
erty is turned over to our government as its property. 
Therefore, if we obtain possession of that species of prop- 
erty known to the laws of the insurrectionary States as 



ANDERSON VII-LE PRISON 1 79 

slaves, why should there be any doubt that that proioerty, 
like any other, vests in the United States? 

If the property in the slave does so vest, then the jus 
dispone7idi^ the right of disposing of that property, vests 
in the United States. 

Now, the United States have disposed of the property 
which they have acquired by capture in slaves taken by 
them, i. e,, by emancipating them, and declaring them free 
forever ; so that, if we have not mistaken the principles of 
international law and the laws of war, we have no slaves 
in the armies of the United States. All are free men, 
being made so in such manner as we have chosen to dis- 
pose of ovu" property in them which we acquired by cap- 
ture. 

Slaves being captured by us, and the right of property 
in them thereby vested in us, that right of property has 
been disposed of by us by manumitting them, as has al- 
ready been the acknowdedged right of the owner to do to 
his slave. The manner in which we dispose of our prop- 
erty while it is in our possession certainly cannot be ques- 
tioned by you. Nor is the case altered if the property is 
not actually captured in battle, but comes either volun- 
tarily or involuntarily from the belligerent owner into the 
possession of the other belligerent. 

I take it no one would doubt the right of the United 
States to a drove of Confederate mules or a herd of Con- 
federate cattle which should wander or rush across the 
Confederate lines into the lines of the United States army. 
So it seems to me, treating the negro as property merely, 
if that j)iece of property passes the Confederate lines, and 
comes into the lines of the United States, that property is 



I So MAUrVKlA. OR 

as much lost to its owner in the Confederate States aa 
would be the mule or ox, the propert}- of the resident of 
the Confederate States, which should fall into our hands. 

If, therefore, the privilege of international law and the 
laws of war used in this discussion arc correctly stated, 
then it would seem that the deduction logicall}'- flows 
therefrom in natural sequence, that the Confederate 
States can ha\c no claim upon the negro soldiers cap- 
tured by them from the armies of the United States be- 
cause of the former ownership of them bj' their citizens 
or subjects, and only claim such as result, under the laws 
of war, from their captor merely. 

Do the Confederate authorities claim the right to re- 
duce to a state of slavery free men, prisoners of war cap- 
tured by them? This claim our fathers fought against 
under Balnbridge and Decatur, when set up by the Bar- 
bar}' Powers on the northern shore of Africa, about the 
year iSoo, — and in 1S64 their children will hardly yield it 
upon their own soil. 

This point I w411 not pursue further, because I under- 
stand you to repudiate the idea that you will i-educe 
free men to slaves because of capture in war, and that 
you base the claim of the Confederate authorities to 
re-enslave our negro soldiers, when captured by you, 
upon the jus fostllminii^ or that principle of the law 
of nations which inhabilitates the former owner with his 
property taken by an enem}' when such property is recov- 
ered by the forces of his own countr3%. Or, in other 
words, you claim that, by the laws of nations and of 
war, when property of the subjects of one belligerent 
power, captured by the forces of the other belligerent, is 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. l8l 

recaptured by the armies of the fonncr owner, then such 
property is to be restored to its prior possessor, as if it 
had never been captured ; and, therefore, under this 
principle, your authorities propose to restore to their 
masters the slaves which heretofore belonged to them 
which you may capture from us. 

But this postliminary right under which you claim to 
act, as understood and defined b}' all writers on national 
law, is applicable simply to immovable property^ and 
that, too, only after complete resubjugation of that por- 
tion of the country in which the property is situated, 
upon which this right fastens itself. By the laws and 
customs of war, this right has never been applied to 
movable property. True it is, I believe, that the Romans 
attempted to apply it to tlie case of slaves ; but for two 
thousand years no other nation has attempted to set up 
this right as ground for treating slaves diflcrcntly from 
other property. 

But the Romans even refused to re-enslave men cap- 
tured from opposing belligereilts in a civil war, such as 
ours unhappily is. 

Consistently, then, with any principle of the law of 
nations, treating slaves as property merely, it would seem 
to be impossible for the government of the United States 
to permit the negroes in their ranks to be re-cnslaved 
when captured, or treated otherwise tlian as prisoners 
of war. 

I have forborne, sir, in this discussion, to argue the 
question upon any other or dilTerent ground of right than 
those adopted by your authorities in claiming the negro 
as property, because I understand that your fabric of 



l82 MARTYRIA, OR 

opposition to the government of the United States has 
the right of property in man as its corner-stone. Of 
course, it would not be profitable in settling a question 
of exchange of prisoners of war to attempt to argue the 
question of abandonment of the very corner-stone of their 
attempted political edifice. Therefore I have admitted 
all the considerations which should apply to the negro 
soldier as a man, and dealt with him upon the Confed- 
erate theory of property only. 

I unite with you most cordially, sir, in desiring a 
speedy settlement of all these questions, in view of the 
great suffering endured by our prisoners in the hands of 
your authorities, of which you so feelingly speak. Let 
me ask, in view of that suffering, why you have delayed 
eight months to answer a proposition which by now 
accepting you admit to be right, just, and humane, allow- 
ing that suffering to continue so long? One cannot help 
thinldng, even at the risk of being deemed uncharitable, 
that the benevolent sympathies of the Confederate author- 
ities have been lately stirred by the depleted condition 
of their armies, and a desire to get into the field, to affect 
the present campaign, the hale, hearty, and well-fed pris- 
oners held by the United States in exchange for the half- 
starved, sick, emaciated, and unserviceable soldiers of the 
United States now languishing in your prisons. The 
events of this war, if we did not know it before, have 
taught us that it is not the northern people alone who 
know how to drive sharp bargains. 

The wrongs, indignities, and privations suffered by our 
soldiers would move me to consent to anything to procure 
their exchange, except to barter away the honor and faith 



andersojSTV'ille prisox. 183 

of the government of the United States, which has been 
so solemnly pledged to the colored soldiers in its ranks. 

Consistently with national faith and justice we cannot 
relinquish this position. With your authorities it is a 
question of property merely. It seems to address itself 
to you in this form : Will you suffer your soldier, cap- 
tured in fighting yovir battles, to be in confinement for 
months rather than release him by giving for him that 
which you call a piece of property, and which we are 
willing to accept as a man? 

You certainly appear to place less value upon your 
soldier than you do upon your negro. I assure you, 
much as we of the North are accused of loving property, 
our citizens would have no difficulty in yielding ujd any 
piece of property they have in exchange for one of their 
brothers or sons languishing in your prisons. Certainly 
there could be no doubt that they would do so, were that 
piece of pi'operty less in value than five thousand dollars 
in Confederate money, which is believed to be the price 
of an able-bodied negro in the insurrectionary States. 

Trusting that I may receive such a reply to the ques- 
tions propounded in this note as will tend to a speedy 
resumption of the negotiations in a full exchange of all 
prisoners, and a delivery of them to their i-espective 
authorities, 

I have the honor to be, 
Very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

Benjamin F. Butler, 
Major- Geoieral and Commissioner of Exchange. 



184 MARTYRIA, OR 



The wretched " material " exchanged for healthy rebel 
soldiers called forth a note of joy from the rebel commis- 
sioner, Ould. The exchanged Fedei^al soldiers were half- 
naked, " living skeletons," covered with filth and vermin ; 
and nearly all of them were unfit for service or labor, and 
most of them physically ruined for the remainder of their 
lives. The flag-of-trucc boats of the different parties pre- 
sented terrible contrasts. On the one wei'e to be seen 
feeble, emaciated, ragged, filthy, and dying men from the 
rebel prisons ; whilst on the other were the rebels return- 
ing from our prisons, well clad in our uniforms, strong 
and healthy from the abundance of food. We returned 
men who had been well treated, and who were then ready 
to take the field again ; whilst we received in turn abused 
and decrepit soldiers, who were so much reduced and 
weakened that few, comparatively, ever again returned to 
service. Along the entire line of prison stockades, from 
Belle Isle in Virginia to Prison Tyler in Texas, the same 
story is told of fiendish cruelty. 

More than thirty thousand of our soldiers have un- 
doubtedly perished during, or in consequence of the bar- 
barities of their prison life in the South. To ascertain 
the precise number will be a difficult task, for many of 
the returned prisoners have died since they have left the 
service ; but when we consider the number of prisons, 
and the long period of occupation, we think that the esti- 
mate of thirty thousand is not too high. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 1 85 



When General Stoneman made his attempt to rescue 
the prisoners, Winder issued the order No. 13, which 
stamps the brute with infamy beyond redemption. In 
this order, which has been preserved. Winder commanded 
the officers in charge of the artillery to open tlieir batte- 
ries, loaded with grape-shot, as soon as the Federals ap- 
proached within seven miles, and to continue the slaughter 
until every prisoner was exterminated. Similar threats 
were made all along the line of the prison stockades in 
North Carolina and in Virginia. " Was the prison 
mined," said Colonel Farnsworth to Turner, the jailer 
of Libby Prison, " when General Kilpatrick approached 
Richmond to attempt to rescue the prisoners?" "Yes," 
was the brutal reply ; " and I would have blown you all 
to Hades before I would have suffered you to be rescued." 
Twelve hundred men blown into atoms at one explosion ! 
Thirty thousand men to be torn into shreds by the iron 
bullets of the cannon ! Contrast the orders of these chi- 
valric men with that of Aboukere, the chief of a reputed 
barbarous horde of Bedouins of the desert : — 

" Warriors of Islam ! attend a moment, and listen well 
to the precepts which I am about to promulge to you 
for observation in times of war. Fight with bravery and 
loyalty. Never use artifice or perfidy towards your ene- 
mies. Do not mutilate the fallen. Do not slay the aged, 
nor the children, nor the women. You will find upon 
your route men living in solitude, in meditation, in the 
adoration of God : do them no injury, give them no of- 
fence." 



1 86 ^ MARTYRIA, OR 

In which are the evidences the most positive of a fra- 
ternal religion and an advanced civilization? 



XX. 

Even women and young girls came from distances to 
view the spectacle. They climbed the parapets of the 
earthworks, and gloated and made merry over the scene 
of suffering. They threw crusts of bread over the pali- 
sades to see the star\'ing wretches struggle for the morsel 
of life. 

They even reviled the condition of the dying. This 
surpasses the ferocity, the depravity, the wickedness of 
gladiatorial times. " The fury of women when once ex- 
cited," says the French historian, " soon rises to profana- 
tion and excess." When the love of humanity vanishes 
from our breasts, it is the death of nature. 

There were, however, a few noble exceptions to those 
strange acts of delight in cruelty ; and the deeds of kind- 
ness of a few women in other parts of the South shine 
with increased brilliancy from the terrible contrast. 



XXI. 

Several of the papers of the South openly and unhesi- 
tatingly approved of the methods of their prison deple- 
tion, and gloated over the fearful destitution and mor- 
tality. 

The Macon " Telegraph and Confederate," only the 
day before the surrender of the city to the Federal forces, 
justified the atrocities at Andersonville ; and the Rich- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 187 

mond " Examiner" exclaimed, " Let the Yankee prison- 
ers be put where the cold weather and scant fare will 
thin them out in accordance with the laws of nature." 
There were, however, noble exceptions to the general 
exhibition of ferocity ; and several officers of the rebel 
army did declare that the condition of aflairs at Ander- 
sonville was a " reproach to them as a nation." 

The author, who served for five years in the Federal 
armies of Virginia, of the South, and the South-west, and 
whose opportunities for observation and inquiry were ex- 
tensive, does not believe General Lee to be implicated in 
these outrages. It is true that Lee might have openly and 
boldly protested against the bai^barities, and gained there- 
by the admiration and the blessing of mankind ; but he 
knew full well that the remonstrance would have fallen 
upon the cold ear of the implacable executive with no 
more effect and weight than when the snow-flake falls 
upon the Alps. 

The Virginian struggled to hold his own against the 
selfish and jealous ambition of the remorseless Mississip- 
pian. 

To have participated in the revolting cabal of cruelty, 
there was required the baseness of political intrigue, and 
to this depth the soldier never sank. 



XXII. 

To charge an entire people with barbarity, because its 
rulers sanction crime, and a vile and venal press applaud 
the motives and the deeds, should not be maintained 
without long deliberation. " History has the right of 



1 88 MARTYRIA, OR 

suspecting without evidence, but never of accusing with- 
out proof." The rank and file of the rebel army were 
drawn from the classes of poor whites, who were essen- 
tially rural in their populations, and who possessed some 
trace of the morals and the natural sentiments of gene- 
rosity that belong to people who cultivate the earth. Al- 
though their instincts wei"e modified by the contact of 
slave labor, they never sank so low in the social scale — 
to that level of the vile populace of the Roman or medie- 
val times, when the crimes of the emperors were applaud- 
ed. These men on the battle-field exhibited feelings of 
humanity ; and it was only under the direction of their 
leaders that they became unkind and ferocious. 

It was the leaders who were responsible for the crimes 
of the sedition ; and what of humanity could be expected 
from men degenerated in blood? What of noble intelli- 
gence could be looked for from mental faculties Ions: since 
degraded? What evidence of a Christian spirit could be 
hoped for from men who had openly perverted or denied 
all the divine precepts, upon which revolve the well-being 
of the human race? " If we had triumphed," says one of 
its apostles, at this late day of forgiveness and repent- 
ance — " if we had triumphed, I should have favored strip- 
ping them naked. Pardon ! They might have apj^ealed 
for pardon, but I would have seen them damned before I 
would have granted it ! " 

When Suwarrow forced his way by the sword into the 
heart of Poland, dividing the realm, devastating the land, 
and destroying multitudes of people, he offered blasphe- 
movis thanks to Heaven for victories obtained over men 
fighting in the sacred cause of liberty, and for all th'». 
human heart holds dear. 



ANDERSONVILLK PRISON. iSq 

XXIII. 

To judge correctly of the magnitudes of these immola- 
tions, these crimes, history must wait for a calmer period, 
when prejudice shall have relaxed its hold upon the un- 
derstanding, and when time shall have rolled up its accu- 
mulated materials of accusation and denial, of proof and 
exoneration. At present we can form some idea of their 
designs, and the degree of the implacability of their souls, 
from the evidence already placed before us, as we measure 
inaccessible heights by the awful shadows which they 
project. , 

Pity appears to have been with them only a vain, fleet- 
ing emotion, if the soul was disturbed at all ; and when- 
ever an act of humanity was dis^^layed, there seems to 
have been the secret motive of gain at work. In defining 
the natural sentiments of pity, they would have declared 
them the illusions of the imagination. 

The brutalizing scenes of Slavery had .modified and 
affected their natural feelings, as the gladiatorial combats 
and exposures of the Christians to the attacks of infu- 
riated wild beasts had inspired the vile populace of Rome 
with the love of blood and cruelty. 

When these men, with sonorous rhetoric, proclaimed 
themselves as the guiding minds of the republic, the 
patrons, the judges of the correct ideas and j^i'iuciples of 
civilization, — when they arrogated to themselves the ap- 
pearance of the wisdom of Lacedtemon with the polite- 
ness of Athens, — they forgot or despised those cardinal 
virtues of society, " justice and truth — these are the first 
duties of man ; humanity, country — these his first af- 
fections." 



190 MARTYRIA, OR 

xxrv. 

" I fear," writes the rebel War Clerk, observing from his 
secure position in the war office, " I fear this government 
in future times will be denounced as a cabal of bandits 
and outlaws, making and executing the most despotic 
decrees." 

Whether this system of the reduction of prisoners was 
devised by the executive, or his immediate advisers, time 
may reveal. But of this we may remain positive, that 
the crime belongs to that little faction of Breckinridge 
Democrats who ruled the Confederacy as they pleased, 
and of which Davis was the recognized leader. Wirz 
was only the De Vargas and Winder the Alva of the 
arranged system. Neither is there any doubt that the 
power of affording relief was clearly within the control 
of the executive. This power was not withheld from 
want of audacity, for the man who dared place in power, 
in spite of remonstrance, men who jeopardized the exist- 
ence of the Confederacy, and who openly disgraced its 
honor, certainly had sufficient courage to perform a com- 
mon act of humanity, and relieve the sufferings of tor- 
tured prisoners, if such had been his inclination. 

No ; there was a system, and " systems are brutal 
forces." " What are your laws and theories," said Dan- 
ton, brutally, to Gensonne, " when the only law is to 
trium^Dh, and the sole theory for the nation is the theory 
of existence." — "Give a man power of doing what he 
pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and con- 
sequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of 
morality. This, too, we find confirmed by matter of fact. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



191 



How many hopeful heirs-apparent to grand empires, 
when in possession of them, have become such monsters 
of hist and cruelty as are a reproach to human nature ! " 
— "Ambition brings to men dissimulation, perfidy, the art 
of feigning the language and sentiments which lay at the 
bottom of the heart ; of measuring their hate and their 
friendship only by their interests and circumstances ; and 
above all, the perfidious science of composing their fea- 
tures, rather than correct and govern their princijDles." 

The wills of bad men are their laws, and brute 
strength their logic. 

XXV. 

It is only distance in time that separates and distin- 
guishes the Caligulas of history, the early, medieval, and 
jDresent periods. History exhibits the first as the undis- 
guised monster of atrocity. The last, overshadowed by 
the mantle of the law, stands but partially revealed. 

To the perverted imaginations of the first the senate 
presented no force of resistance. To the petulant as- 
perity, the abuse of power of the last, the doubtful liber- 
tics of the people imposed certain restrictions, which led 
to the resort of narrow and malignant minds — secrecy 
and concealment. 

Nature had not cast him in the mould of those states- 
men who sacrifice all personal feelings for the public good, 
and who willingly yield up their lives to advance the 
noble work of true civilization. Obstinacy with him was 
firmness ; cunning, deptli ; resistance to humane feelings, 
resolution. Envy, hatred, murmurs, were braved with 
inflexible determination when pursuing his plans of 



192 MARTYRIA, OR 

favoritism, or defending his tools of oppi-ession and 
cruelty against the voice of nature and outraged liberty. 

There ai'e some men who appear to be destined for the 
instruction of the world, as the abettors and satellites of 
despotism, who cannot or who do not recognize the differ- 
ence between interest or conscience ; vvdio desire to debase 
mankind, that they may appear above the common level 
of humanity, conscious of their incapability of lifting 
themselves up by virtue and by nobility of action. 

This man was the incarnation of the spirit of Slavery ; 
he could have exclaimed, with Barnave, " Perish the 
colonies rather than a principle." This man was, for the 
time being, the entire incorporation of the sedition — its 
principles, its passions, its impulses, its cruelties. 

"There are abysses which we dare not sound, and 
characters we desire not to fathom, for fear of finding in 
them too great darkness, too much horror." 

This man, so calm, so dignified, so wise in his exterior, 
could not find -sufficient generosity in his soul, although 
the representative of five millions of men, to say to these 
armies of suffering prisoners, * * * indignus Ccesaris 
h-ce — unworthy of the anger of Caesar. 

xxvr. 

What have the wretches to offer in atonement for these 
outrages upon nature, these violations of the spirit and 
majesty of the law, from %vhich they now claim pro- 
tection ? 

Will the blood of these living monsters expiate the 
martyrdom of the host of dead heroes? No ! 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I93 

Will it give ease or bring congratulation to the broken 
and aching hearts who yet revere the memory of the 
thirty thousand victims? Never! 

The divine spirit of liberty would protest against the 
defilement of her sacred altars with the foul blood of 
such filthy and depraved sacrifices. 

Let the gates of the prison open, and these men stand 
forth to the full gaze of offended mankind, assassins and 
murderers as they are. 

Vengeance does not belong to the human race. 

There are times in the history of men when human in- 
vectives are v*^ithout force. " There are deeds of which 
no men are judges, and which mount, without appeal, 
direct to the tribunal of God." 
9 



c 



BOOK EIGHTH 



ERTAIN branches of the human family present 
physical peculiarities and aptitudes for certain cli- 
mates which others do not. The one thrives and arrives 
at perfection, whilst the other languishes and dies. 

Floras and Faunas have well-defined limits of latitude, 
beyond which they decline and become extinct, and in 
some countries we observe certain limitations as to longi- 
tudes. " There are tropical trees that become shrubs in 
our zone, and the flowers of our meadows have their 
types in the tapering trunks of other climes." 

How rajiidly the beautiful varieties of domestic animals 
deteriorate and disappear when removed from the locali- 
ties and conditions in which they attained their excellence. 
The handsome Swiss cattle when carried to the plains 
of Lombardy, and the remarkable varieties of the English 
herds when removed to Central France, quickly lose their 
characteristics of form and superiority. Under the tropics 
the sheep loses its silken fleece, and the noble qualities of 
the dog greatly change. 

Even the insect world changes greatly in every twelve 
degrees of latitude, and an alteration, almost total, ap- 
pears in double the space. 

(194) 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISOX. 



195 



The influence of climate and locality, which exercises 
so positive a power in the vegetable kingdom and animal 
reign, affects man likewise, and would be as distinctly 
marked were it not resisted by the forces of the intelli- 
gence. We find under certain parallels of latitude more 
energy of mind and greater activity of body than at others ; 
we observe this more distinctly with particular races or 
varieties than with others, thus indicating that all have 
not the same aptitudes : again, through a combination of 
organic and social laws, types adajDted to certain pursuits 
spring up in every civilized country, these types distinct 
from either varieties or s^^ecies. We also see the sharp 
characteristics of races, when migrating, become less dis- 
tinct, and mixtures increase, and the inferior races disap- 
pear, like " the elementary language or the primitive 
forms of the social state." 

The observed limit of range of the Hindoo and the 
African, in the Old World, is not beyond 30° of the equa- 
tor, and in a lower latitude than 36° the European colonies 
have never prospered, never succeeded, in their attempts 
for empire. Where now are the countless hosts of Ro- 
mans, Gauls, and Vandals that have occupied Northern 
Africa in past times? The ethnologist of to-day cannot 
discover a feature, hardly a trace even, of the language 
of the conquerors remaining among the present tribes of 
occupation. Even the Roman has vanished, and the 
only vestige of the Carthaginian and Numidian is shown 
by the scattered and diminished Bergers. These varieties 
contended with the climate, and were gradually absorbed 
by the stronger native tribes. 

The Mongols once held Central Europe, the Goths 



196 MARTYRIA, OR 

ruled Italy. Where are they? There is no longer Van- 
dalic blood in Africa or Gothic blood in Italy. 

In later times the strong, the fierce and dauntless North- 
men held the Sicilies, and as the incorruptible Varingar 
guai'ded and upheld with their fearless swords the waning 
empire of the efieminate Greeks at the Dardanelles. 
Where are they and their descendants? The only traces 
are seen among the tombstones at Palermo, or in the 
Runic inscriptions which they sacrilegiously sculptured 
with their long blades of steel upon the flanks of the 
marble lion of the Piraeus. 



II. 

In the year 1600 hardly a European family could be 
found along the headlands and indentations of the coast 
which form the southern limit of the Slave States of 
America. 

Since that time the countless multitudes of the red men 
who inhabited the forests of these lands have disappeared, 
and other races from an older world and other climes 
have taken their places, increasing in numbers with as 
great rapidity as the other declined. 

We have seen here the swarthy sons of Nubia, under 
the fostering care of Slavery, or under the mysterious and 
unexplained influences of climate, increase with such 
rapidity, that the ratio for the last decade (previous to 
the wai"), if continued for a century, would give a black 
population of more than forty millions. Strange spec- 
tacle in the movement of races ! 

Here we see, almost during the memory of living men, 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



197 



a distinct race disappear, and a new nation of totally 
opposite character rise up, as if by magic, in their 
vanishing footsteps. How prophetic was the speech of 
the Indian chief to his tribe, when he beheld with dismay 
the steady progress of the white men who lived upon the 
cereals ! '' I say, then," exclaimed the red man, " to 
every one who hears me, before the trees above our heads 
shall have died of age, before the maples of the valley 
cease to yield us sugar, the race of the sowers of corn 
will have extirpated the race of flesh-eaters." 



III. 

This rate of increase observed among the blacks of our 
Slave States is not seen among the population of the West 
India Islands, where singular oscillations are exhibited, 
and the statistics of the past two centuries have inclined 
two of the most eminent European statisticians to assert 
that in a century the negro will nearly have disappeared 
from these islands. 

Observations at Martinique and Guadaloupe certainl}' 
warrant the inference. In Cuba the blacks decreased 
four or five thousand during the period of 1S04 to 181 7. 

This decrease or stand-still in the progress of the race 
in these regions may have been caused by conditions, 
moral or physical, wholly within the control of man. 

There are animals who will not propagate and con- 
tinue their species whilst in a state of servitude, and it is 
reasonable to believe that the same moral causes affect 
the condition of enslaved mankind. Naturalists have 
shown how the evils of Slavery degrade animals, and 



1^8 MARTYRIA, OR 

Buffon has pointed out the deep and conspicuous im- 
pressions it has made upon the camel. 



IV. 

Since the discovery and forcible entrance of the golden 
Empire of Mexico, and the display of her marvellous 
mineral treasures by the bold Cortez and his companions, 
we have seen a constant stream of the Spaniards and ■ 
the affiliated nations of the Latin race pouring across the 
Atlantic to the new worlds which were given to the 
house of Castile and Leon by the sublime genius of 
the Genoese, following the stars and the traditions of the 
Northmen. 

Wealth and the baseless fabrics of martial glory were 
the alluring objects of this migrating column of men. 

"Hast thou gold?" exclaimed they to the Mexican 
princes. " I and my companions have a malady which 
is only cured by gold." 

After these four centuries of occupation of the elevated 
plains and table-lands of Mexico, where the mean tem- 
perature does not exceed 77° Fahrenheit, and whei'e the 
mildness of climate, the wealth of a wonderful, prolific 
nature, excite the ambition and the cupidity of men ; and 
after the long efforts at colonization, in which the parent 
country was almost exhausted by the drain of her best 
blood, — Spain finds that the predictions of Dr. Knox are 
rapidly being realized, and that only 600,000 Europeans 
and their hybrid descendants, and but 8000 Spaniards of 
pure blood, can be found of all the numberless hosts that 
have embarked for these lands. Spain halts, and reflects 



ANDERSON VILLE PRISON. 1 99 

upon this report of her scientific commission, which 
shows a decrease of one half since the estimate of Hum- 
boldt, in 1793; whilst France, always blind to reason 
whenever the eagles of glory desire to expand their 
wings, persists in her useless occupation of Algeria, 
where Gaul has again and again vainly endeavored to 
rear her colonies in times past ; and she now attempts 
to unfurl her standards and establish her institutions on 
those Mexican shores where the blood and energy of a 
stronger and better adapted people have been expended 
in vain. Idle effort ! The elements of nature are stronger 
than the will of men ; neither do they give way to the 
desires or attacks of human ambition. 

There are geographical boundai-ies which races cannot 
pass in pursuit of wealth or the dreams of ambition. A 
single generation will not determine the law of expansion 
and decay. 



In this connection it will be proper to glance over the 
past, among those phenomena which men have observed, 
and those laws which the Creator has thus far revealed to 
us for guidance in the procession of races or the march 
of intellect. 

In the mysteries of the material world everything is 
governed by fixed and positive laws. Not a flower ap- 
pears in the field to gladden the hearts of men but what 
rises up with invariable structure, and blooms at definite 
periods. Not a sparrow falls to the earth but in accord- 
ance with Nature's law. Not a star shines in the firma- 
ment but in unison with the great and illimitable designs 



200 MARTYRIA, OR 

of God. Everywhere do we observe harmony in space, 
in movement ; everywhere visible signs of a beneficent, 
protecting Creator. It is the same with the enormous 
forms of living animals as with the insignificant shapes 
of the insect world : all play their part in the problem 
of Nature. Size is nothing with the Creator ; form is 
notliing. Perchance 

" the poor beetle, that we tread ui^on, 
In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great 
As when a giant dies," 



VI. 



History indicates mysterious laws in the progress of the 
typical stocks of the human families ; and it shows, in 
the colonization of the past, how frail are human calcu- 
lations in migration and settlement unless based upon 
science. " It is not unknown to me," said the Roman 
soldier, .two thousand years ago, when about to attack the 
remnant of the army of Brennus, that had passed over 
into Asia Minor, and conquered the land by the fierceness 
of their attack, and the terror of their name, — " it is not 
unknown to me," said Manlius, " that of all the nations 
inhabiting Asia, the Gauls have the highest reputation as 
soldiers. 

"A fierce nation, after overrunning the face of the earth 
with its arms, has fixed its abode in the midst of a race 
of men the gentlest in the world. Their tall persons ; 
their long, red hair ; their vast shields, and swords of 
enormous length ; their songs also when they are advan- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 20I 

cing to action ; their yells and dances, and the horrid 
clashing of their arrows while they brandish their shields 
in a peculiar manner practised in their original country, 
— all these are circumstances calculated to strike terror. 
But let Greeks, and Phrygians, and Carians, who are un- 
accustomed to and unacquainted with these things, be 
frightened by such. The Romans, long acquainted with 
Gallic tumults, have learned the emptiness of then- 
parade. Our forefathers had to deal with genuine native 
Gauls ; but they are now a degenerate, a mongrel race, 
and in reality what they are named, Gallogrecians. Just 
so is the case of vegetables, the seeds not being so efhca- 
cious for preserving their original constitution as the prop- 
erties of the soil and climate in which they may be reared, 
when changed, are towards altering it. The Macedoni- 
ans who settled at Alexandria, in Egypt, or in Seleucia, 
or Babylonia, or in any other of their colonies scattered 
over the world, have sunk into Syrians, Parthians, or 
Egyptians. 

" What trace do the Tarentines retain of the hardy, 
rugged discipline of Sparta ? Everything that grows in 
its own natural soil attains the greater perfection : what- 
ever is planted in a foreign land, by a gradual change in 
its nature degenerates into a similitude to that which 
affords it nurture. Brutes retam for a time, when taken, 
their natural ferocity ; buf after being long fed by the 
hands of men, they grow tame. Think ye then that 
Nature does not act in the same manner in softening the 
savage tempers of men ? Do you believe these to be of 
the same kind that their fathers and grandfathers were? 

* * « "By the very great fertility of the soil, the very 
9* 



203 MARTYRIA, OR 

great mildness of the climate, and the gentle dispositions 
of the neighboring nations, all that bai'barous fierceness 
which they brought with them has been quite mollified." 

And finally the Romans themselves, in spite of their 
sanitary measures, became from year to year more alien 
in blood from the genuine stock of Romulus and Remus, 
until the distinctive characters of the conquerors of the 
earth finally disappeared. 

The Latins, Sabines, and primitive Etruscans pressed 
constantly upon them with the irresistible force of destiny. 
When Scipio ^milianus was interrupted in the forum by 
this mongrel populace, he exclaimed, " Silence, false sons 
of Italy ! Think ye to scare me with your brandished 
hands, ye whom I led my§elf in bonds to Rome?" 

When the fierce and hardy Northmen descended into 
Southern Europe, they carried along with their laws a 
chastity and a reserve that excited universal surprise. 
But these virtues were not of long continuance there ; the 
climate and the customs of the new society soon warmed 
their frozen imaginations, and their laws by degrees re- 
laxed, and their manners even more than their laws. 

The giants of the North many times swept down over 
the plains of Italy, and regenerated with fresh and pure 
blood the puny breeds of degenerate Rome, but they have 
since disappeared, and their descendants are no longer to 
be found in these countries. 



VII. 

In relation to the futile efforts of Spain in Mexico, the 
ethnologist Knox exclaims, " Neither climate, nor gov- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



203 



ernment, nor external influences ever alter race. They 
may and they do aflect them, and in time destroy them, 
but they never give rise to a new race. In half a century 
the dreams of Humboldt, of Canning, of Guizot, and other 
profound statesmen, have come to a close, and Nature once 
more, as I long ago predicted, asserts her rights." 

Naturalists, from Hippocrates to Buffbn, have believed 
that climate, heat and cold, dryness and humidity, the 
qualities and abundance of nouiishment, have power to 
modify men and animals, but " neither climate, nor gov- 
ernment, nor external circumstances ever give rise to 
a new race." The generous qualities once gone, are de- 
parted forever, and their loss can rarely be retrieved. 
Where is the instance of a fallen man, class, or nation? 

" The history of nations," writes the Registrar-General 
of England, — "the history of nations on the Mediter- 
ranean or the plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, the 
deltas of the Indies and Ganges, and the rivers of Cliina, 
exhibits the great fact : the gradual descent of race from 
the highlands, their establishment on the coasts, in cities 
sustained and refreshed for a season by emigration from 
the interior — their degradation in successive generations 
under the influence of the vmhealthy earth, and their final 
ruin, effacement, or subjugation by new races of con- 
querors. The causes that destroy individual men lay 
cities waste, which, in their nature, are immortal, and 
silently undermine eternal empires. 

" A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ; 
An hour may lay it in the dust : and when 
Can man its shattered splendors renovate, 
Recall its virtues back, and vanquish time and fate ? " 



204 MARTYRIA, OR 



VIII. 



During this period of two centuries of colonization the 
European races have attempted to perpetuate their fami- 
lies upon these lands in question. They brought with 
them strong physical forces, and a high degree of mental 
cultivation. Mental strength will endure extremes of 
climate to a singular degree, but even this gradually yields 
to cosmic influences. It is a well-observed law of Nature 
that man must be organized in harmony with the condi- 
tion of climate, othei*wise he perishes. This scale of 
the strength of resisting opposing forces depends greatly 
upon the purity of the blood and the cultivation of the 
mind, whose remarkable powers of resisting disease have 
been observed and pointed out by Malte-Brun, Goethe, 
Kant, and other philosophers. 

Europeans may visit and remain for limited periods in 
almost every portion of the globe. The deadly miasms 
of Central America, the pestilential atmospheres of Cen- 
tral Africa, and the frozen mists of either pole, ai'e braved 
b}' the inquiring travellers of the civilized races, but not 
with impunity. 

Intelligent and educated men may live for a while as 
gentlemen of leisure, in the midst of malarial climates, 
almost without perceptible effect, but the moment they 
apply their forces to the cultivation of the earth. Nature 
asserts her rights. 

Yet during the period of the rich man, whilst he lives 
without physical labor, in ease, contemplation, and con- 
tentment, degeneration is slowly but surely taking place. 
The law of fecundity proves it, as with the Mamelukes in 
E?vpt, as observed by Volney. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 205 

The English race loses its energy, according to Farr, 
in two or three generations in the lowlands of the West 
India Islands and in Southern Asia. The Duke of Wel- 
lington believed that every English family in Lower 
Bengal would die out in the third generation. 



The laws of nature as regards influences of climate, 
food, and society, have operated less upon the condition 
of the rich slaveholder than the poorer white, who has 
struggled for existence, contending with the poverty of 
sterile or abandoned soils, and the hostile influences of 
climate, and the sneer of the slave and his master. The 
rich man has resisted the opposing forces of the elements 
with less apparent changes, whilst the poor man has suc- 
cumbed to the influences and sadly degenerated, but the 
poor white still possesses the rough nobility and majesty 
of natural man, whilst the rich slaveholder, with his per- 
verted ideas of honor, virtue, and justice, has gained the 
merited contempt of mankind. For the one, civilization 
has the sympathetic feeling of compassion ; from the 
other, Nature herself recoils in horror. 

This degeneration of the poor white is no mystery. 
Their poverty of blood and weakness of mind were not 
engendered by the insalubrity of climate, nor even by the 
sterility of the soil alone. Deny to any race, class, or 
community free social condition, freedom of thought, the 
expansion of the mind, the liberty of political and re- 
ligious ideas, and it is sure to degenerate, and in time to 
perish. 



206 MARTYRIA, OR 

The doctrine of Adam Smith and the theory of Malthus 
as to the fatal necessity of starvation, are in some measure 
correct, but they are mistaken in the view that human 
fecundity tends to get the start of the means of subsist- 
ence, for on the contrary it keeps pace with it. 

We find that the fishes in the lakes, and the wolves in 
the forests, increase in exact ratio to the amount of food 
furnished. Nature regulates the fecundity of animals 
and human beings when society neglects it. 

X. 

The influences of climate, of food, of temperature, of 
domesticity upon the variation of species is well known. 
These mediate and external causes act with more vigor 
when the immediate and internal causes favor the effect. 
" All the mechanism of the formation of varieties," says 
Flourens, "turns upon these two internal causes — the 
tendency of the species to vary, and the transmission of 
the acquired variations." Cultivated plants and domes- 
ticated animals, when deprived of the modifying influence 
of man, return to the state of nature, and undergo new 
modifications, alterations, degenerations, even so far as to 
disguise and conceal the primitive type. 

A few generations suffice to restore a variety to the 
primitive stock without retaining any of the organic ele- 
nients which would debase it. 

The more the influence of civilized man makes itself 
felt, the more the superior species overpower, absorb, or 
modify the inferior species. 

The more rude the people and the less polished their 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



207 



societies, the more powerful and rapid will be the influ- 
ences of climate. Civilized men are continually exer- 
cising their talents to conform their conditions to the 
necessities of the time and place, and by their ingenuity 
i-emedy the defects, and by the resisting powers of a 
cultivated and occupied mind resist many of the morbid 
influences of climate. But plants and animals succumb 
at once if not protected by man. 

XI. 

During the more than two centuries of occupation of 
these southern lands there appear sufiicient data to form, 
perhaps, some definite ideas of the success or failure of 
colonization, and the vague and doubtful process of accli- 
mation. These evidences, thus far, are decidedly in favor 
of the black man. For he has multiplied with astonish- 
ing rapidity, and preserved his physical forces, and during 
this long and brutalizing term of his servitude he has not 
exhibited the ferocity of his master, save when hunted 
down like the beasts of prey, as in Hayti ; neither has he 
sunk so low in the scale of true humanity as those who 
have held him in bondage. 

The hungry and maimed soldier of the re^^ublic, 
escaping from the murderous prison-dens of the rebels, 
always found a crust of bread, a protecting shelter, and a 
kind word from the humblest and most oppressed of 
these beings. 

Never were they betrayed by the black man, although 
the reward was large. Never were they denied assist- 
ance, although the penalty was death. 



2o8 ISIARTYRIA, OR 

Although history seems to forbid, we are not of that 
class of men who maintain that there are inferior races, 
intended by nature for servitude ; for we beheve that 
every race contains the elements of greatness, and that 
there is a common destiny to all. And we cherish the 
idea that there is a better future even for the black man 
among the civilized nations of the earth. The singular 
aptitude of the black man for music, which is the lan- 
guage of the soul ; his deep, sincere, immovable venera- 
tion for the precepts, the faith, the hope of Christianity, 
do not indicate a race lost to the nobler impulses, or to 
the benign influences of civilization, nor a people aban- 
doned and accursed by Providence. God has gifted every 
living creature with the instinct of self-preservation ; he 
has endowed all animated creatures of the human form 
with the love of the beautiful, with the desire of develop- 
ing and perfecting their innate powers, and of leaving on 
earth some act, some memorial worthy of imitation or 
remembrance. He who declines to help his fellow- 
creature in the struggle for social existence, in the effort 
for happiness, knowledge, and immortality, is less than 
a man. 

The problem of civilization is left mostly to the free 
will of men, and God blasts and crumbles into dust only 
those nations who have abused the gifts and privileges of 
nature, and who, when arriving at the height of prosperity 
and power, have disregarded and despised those principles 
of morality and religion which form the true base of all 
society. How all the noble aspirations may be crushed 
and the instincts perverted ; how from a species of volun- 
tary insanity, by our own fierce passions, and by a strange 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 2O9 

desire of mutual destruction, men rush on to contest and 
to ruin, is well illustrated by the past of the slave faction. 



xir 

It is evident that the black man has not deteriorated 
during his sojourn in these countries ; on the contrary, he 
has improved in physique : the repulsive Congo type has 
changed, and the Circassian features rippear. It is the 
result of the law of contact and example ; it is the effect 
of civilization. 

Has the white man gained in similar ratio ? Go to the 
cotton fields and rice lands, and learn a lesson from the 
instructive contrast of the gaunt and apathetic white 
laborer, with the sturdy, well-developed, lively black. 
You will then obsen'e that these vast alluvial lands, which 
rank in richness and fertility with the best on the globe, 
must be consigned to waste by reason of insalubrit}'-, if 
not cultivated by races of men who are congenial 
to the soil and climate. There is no white race who 
can cultivate these lands, and enjoy life and establish 
society with any duration. Malaria would forbid, if other 
conditions were favorable. 

The littoral lands of the lower tier of Slave States, 
which are composed of post tertiary and alluvial soils, 
tertiary sands and secondary chalk marls, can be tilled in 
safety and with economy and with gain only by the black 
man. Below the upper terraces and the slopes of the 
mountain ranges of the northern limits of these States, 
where we find the primary and metamorphic rocks and 
their debris, the white laborer cannot descend without 



2IO MARTYRIA, OR 

contending with the full force of his nature, with disease, 
degeneration, and jDre mature death. 

There are now in the States of Florida, Alabama, Mis- 
sissippi, and Louisiana thirty millions of acres of arable 
land yet belonging to the United States, unsold and un- 
occupied. In all England there are but seven million 
acres of uncultivated land. 



XIII. 

Malaria, that curse of the Circassian race, which is the 
chief source of the inefficiency and mortality of their 
efforts of colonizations in semi-tropical climes, exerts but 
little influence upon the negroes, and hence they are ad- 
mirably qualified for the occupation of pestilential soils. 

It appears from the statistics of the English that remit- 
tent and intermittent fevers, which prove the great source 
of inefficiency and mortality among the white troops in 
trojDical climes, exert compai^atively but little influence 
upon the blacks. 

The writer has observed the fatal effects of the perni- 
cious fevers upon the white inhabitants of the low coasts 
of Georgia and South Carolina, and has seen men perish 
in a single night from the deadly action of the miasms, 
whilst the negroes were unaffected. 

During the English expedition up the Nile nearly all 
the whites were prostrated by fevers, and none of the 
native blacks were affected. After the French landed at 
Vera Cruz the yellow fever found great numbers of vic- 
tims among the Europeans ; but according to the report 
of the inspector-general, Regnaud, not one of the 600 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 211 

negro soldiers and sailors from the West Indies, though 
hard at work there, were attacked, or rather not one of 
them died. There are hundreds of similar examples to 
illustrate the theory. 

We cannot escape the mephitism of the soil. So long 
as we respire the air, so long shall we receive into the 
system the deleterious vapors by the respiratory apparatus, 
which is the most perfect of the absorbing agents : the 
time of effect is determined only by the health, the 
strength, and vigor of our forces. The destroying ele- 
ments may take effect at once, or they may be resisted for 
a long, though definite period of time. Malaria alone 
has a wide range among the causes of human misery, 
and it is believed to cause more than half of the mortal- 
ity of the human families on the globe. 

Its deadly action, in depopulating cities and provinces, 
is well attested in history, and its effect upon the intellec- 
tual expansion is still more marked ; sadness, languor, 
paludal cachexia, scrofulous, deformed, and short-lived 
offspring, are among its train of evils. In the Roman 
states alone, sixty thousand perish every year from this 
paludal influence. These deltas of the Southern States are 
among the greater miasmatic foyers of the world, and are 
as deadly in their miasms as the Campagna of Italy or 
the Sunderbunds of Hindostan. 



XIV. 

There are many reasons to induce the belief, that if 
properly directed, the blacks may attain distinction in 
social life and progress, and a higher degree of perfection 



213 MARTYRIA, OR 

in physical development. The skeleton of the negro is 
firmer and heavier, the bones being larger and thicker 
than that of any other race ; but physiologists observe 
that the muscular development does not correspond to the 
strong dimensions of the frame. This deficiency of nature 
may be explained by the want of proper nutrition, or to 
physical causes within human control, for all proportions 
in nature are hai'monious. Tv/o of the most admirable 
boxers that have appeared in the British arena were 
blacks, and the dark, swarthy hue of the famous wrestler, 
Marseilles, reminds how common is the tinge of African 
blood in South France, Spain, and Italy. 

While statistics appear to exhibit the physical supe- 
riority of the blacks in the low countries, they also prove 
how prone to pulmonary disease are they when migrating 
to the uplands, or higher latitudes, and how fearful the 
mortality. Thus Nature, it seems, offers serious barriers 
to their progress, and boundaries within which they must 
confine themselves or perish. 

XV. 

It has been urged that the intermingling of the freed 
blacks with the whites in these States will produce a 
variety of people more vicious, and less willing to be 
controlled by the social laws, than either pure race. 

Of this there is but little danger, as ethnology will 
show. There will not be, under any ordinaiy circum- 
stances, any intermingling of the two races, for the law 
of ethnic repugnance is too great. The strong ethnic 
antipathies will keep them apart. The possibility of the 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 213 

intermixture of families and races so widely remote is as 
rigidly limited as the law of chemical proportions, and 
the absorption of the minor quantity is inevitable. Give 
both races the same field for expansion in these States, 
and the white race will soon find itself in the minority, 
both of numbers and in physical strength ; for, according 
to natural laws, the stronger blood always absorbs the 
weaker when there is unobstructed action, and especially 
■yvhen climate favors vastly one of the contending types. 

There are to-day four or five times as many centenarians 
among the blacks as there are among the whites of the 
cotton I'egions. 

In consideration of this subject of miscegenation, let 
us review the phenomena that have been brought to light 
by the naturalists who have studied hybridity among 
animals, and recall a few facts from history to support 
the experimentalists. 

XVI. 

In the animal world, in the wild state, hybrids are 
rarely if ever produced, and it is only from the experi- 
ments of the naturalists that the law of hybridity has been 
explained. 

We see the bipartites appear, when two kindred 
species mix together under the influence of man, these 
animals partaking of the qualities of both. The horse 
and the ass ; the ass, zebra, and hermione ; the wolf and 
the dog ; the dog and the jackal ; the goat and the ram ; 
the deer and the axis, &c., unite and breed ; but these ar- 
tificial species are not durable, and they have only limited 
fecundity. " The mongrels of the dog and the wolf are 



214 



MARTYRIA, OR 



Sterile from the third generation. The mongrels of the 
jackal and the dog are so from the fourth. Moreover, if 
we unite these mongrels to one of the two primitive 
species, they soon revert completely and totally to that 
species. 

" The mongrel of the dog and jackal contains more 
of the jackal than the dog. It has the straight ears, the 
pendent tail ; it does not bark ; it is wild. It is moi-e 
jackal than dog. This is the first product of the crossed 
union of the dog with the jackal. I continue to unite the 
successive produce, from generation to generation, with 
one of the two primitive roots, — with that of the dog, 
for example. 

" The mongrel of the second generation does not bark 
yet, but it has the ears pendent at the tip : it is less wild. 

" The mongrel of the third generation barks : it has 
pendent ears, raised tail : it is no longer wild. The 
mongrel of the fourth generation is entirely dog. Four 
generations, then, have sufficed to restore one of the two 
primitive types — the dog type ; and four generations suf- 
fice also to restore the other type — the jackal type. Thus, 
when the mongrels produced from the union of two 
distinct species unite together, either become soon sterile, 
or they unite with one of the two primitive stocks, and 
they soon revert to this stock ; in no case do they yield 
what may be called a new species, that is, an intermediate, 
durable species. 

" Whether, then, we consider the external causes, — the 
succession of time, years, ages, revolutions of the globe, or 
internal causes, — that is to say, the crossing of the species, 
the species do not alter, do not change, nor pass from one 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 215 

to the other ; the siDecies is fixed." Such are the concki- 
sions of the admirable efforts of Flourens. 

" The imprint of each si^ecies," says Bufibn, " is a type, 
the principal features of which are engraved in characters 
ineffaceable, and permanent forever ; but all the accessory 
touches vary ; no individual perfectly resembles another." 



XVII. 

Among the human families, the law of hybridity, which 
has been pointed out so cleai'ly by Flourens, has also its 
fixed and inflexible rules ; these rules have not been so 
well studied with men as with animals, but it is believed 
to have its limit at the seventh generation. At all events, 
the experiments of human hybridism, and acclimation in 
strange latitudes, have always in time ended in disaster ; 
and that such will always be the fate of the attempted 
union of different races in unfavorable climes, have been 
the views of Humboldt, of Canning, of Guizot, and other 
profound statesmen. We observe among the races in 
savage life a natural repugnance to vmite : as for instance, 
the negroes and the fairer people of the Philippine and 
Polynesian Isles show no disposition to unite ; and though 
living side by side, in the same country, for a long period, 
they have not produced an intermediate I'ace. Neither 
do the Eskimos nor the Red Men, neither do the Caffi-es 
nor the Hottentots mix, for in the state of nature the law 
of ethnic repugnance is supreme. It is only in the arti- 
ficial and depraved states of society that hybrids appear, 
and their existence is of short and fixed duration. 

The apjDarent duration and perfection of the Coulouglis, 



2l6 MARTYRIA, OR 

the bipartates of the Bergers and Turks, may be an excep- 
tion to the general rule. But the results of the mingling 
of human families, widely separated, is generally very 
decided. 

The Creoles, produced by the African with the Span- 
iard, Italian, and the Southern French, possess consider- 
able durability, but disease and degeneration soon appear 
when the black mingles with the blood and humors of 
the more northern nations. With all these mixtures there 
is a profound characteristic, which constitutes the unity, 
identity, and reality of the species, which is, continuous 
fecundity ; and this characteristic never varies : it is im- 
mutable. The mulattoes live less time than the black 
or the white race, and their offspring perish readily, and 
are rarely prolific, except when united with stronger in- 
dividuals of either primitive tyjDe, to which they soon 
return. 

xvm. 

The blacks have been too degraded to more than con- 
ceive of liberty, too debased to think of resistance to the 
forces that crushed them, and they have neither obsei-ved, 
nor sought for opportunities, to throw off their chains and 
sweep over the lands, like a destroying element, with the 
accumulated wrongs of centuries. Yet there were black 
men among them who were capable of high cultivation. 
The long contact with the superior white race had recast 
the faculties of their mind, and had altered perceptibly the 
rugged contour of their forms and features. 

The writer observed with wonder in the regiment of 
black men which formed part of the column of the des- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 217 

perate assault upon Fort Wagner, beautiful heads, whose 
classic and regular outlines recalled the finest of the 
antique. 

We believe with the writer in the " Revue des Deux 
Mondes," that contact with the white races has given 
the negro the lines of the Caucasian form, and that the 
Congo type can disappear or become greatly modified. 

These changes in the typical form, which we have since 
observed elsewhere, appear to have taken place sometimes 
without the admixture of the blood of the whites. 

That the black men in the United States army fought 
well, no one will deny ; that they conducted themselves 
admirably in the murderous assaults at Fort Wagner, or 
under the destroying fire at Olustee, and in many other 
conflicts, every one possessed of any candor will admit. 
When we consider the degradation whence they suddenly 
rose, and the steadiness and firmness, and the manly 
bearing they exhibited after the few lessons of military 
training, we are compelled to render thanks to them for 
their efforts in the struggle for national existence, and to 
admit the probability of their attaining that degree of in- 
telligence, wisdom, and virtue which distinguish the true 
citizen. That these men will attain the standard of intel- 
lect of the Caucasian, we neither expect nor believe ; but 
we do maintain, that in the nature of every race, however 
debased by prejudice, and the avarice of superior society, 
there exists the element of honesty, virtue, truth, and a 
horror of wrong, which may be developed and turned to 
the good of all society, in repelling and resisting the force 
of machination, the intrigue which arises from disap- 

lO 



3l8 MARTYRIA, OR 

pointed ambition, or the insatiable lust of more favored 
and less considerate classes. 

No one acquainted with the history of the commerce 
of human beings will wonder at the present condition of 
the blacks, or that they have not risen in the scale of 
social and intellectual advancement. For, looking back 
to the primitive ages we may see how the human species 
have been depressed in servitude, and how the very same 
families, who carried the arts and sciences to celestial 
limits, were affected by this influence. Persons of the 
same blood and inheritance as the best families of Greece 
and Rome, were often reduced to slavery, and they sank 
rapidly under its debasing effects. They were tamed like 
the black man of the South ; " like brutes, by the stings 
of hunger and the lash ; and their education was so con- 
ducted as to render them commodious instruments of 
labor for their possessors. This degradation of course 
depressed their minds, restricted the expansion of their 
faculties, stifled almost every effort of genius, and exhib- 
ited them to the world as beings endued with inferior 
capacities to the rest of mankind. But for this opinion 
there appears to have been no foundation in truth or jus- 
tice. Equal to their fellow-men in natural talents, and 
alike capable of improvement, any apparent or real dif- 
ference between them and some others must have been 
owing to the mode of education, to the rank they wei^e 
doomed to occupy, and to the treatment they were ap- 
pointed to endure." 

After all, the world appears to be a vast arena, where 
the good and the bad are gathered together, and men are 
left to their own efforts, whether to rise up in that scale 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 210 

of intelligence and virtue which conducts to immortality, 
or to grovel deeper into the depths of degradation, where 
there is nothing but death and annihilation. The vault 
of heaven grows in immensity as we gaze into its limit- 
less expanse, whilst the shadows and attractions of earth 
fade away from view, or allure only those who have for- 
saken nature. 

XVIII. 

Have the European races advanced in these latitudes 
in strength of mind and body with equal ratio as the 
black man? We think not. Let us consider. 

The qualities of plants and vegetables are often affected 
by external influences, so as to assume different charac- 
ters, and the impressions upon the leaves and the fruits 
are distinctly marked. These alterations, degenerations, 
and modifications may disguise the primitive type so far 
that it is no longer recognizable. We observe these 
properties among all organic bodies, among those of the 
animal and as well as of the vegetable world. The vine 
and its golden extracts are very much dependent upon 
these influences. 

The exquisite bouquet, the soul-inspiring qualities of 
the best varieties of wine, cannot be acquired by the 
eflbrts of man at pleasure ; without the generous nature 
of the soil, the rays of sunlight, and the inspiring breezes 
of favored localities and climes, the extract of the pressed 
grape is without that flavor and force which warm into 
life the brilliancy of the imagination, the nobility of 
the soul. 

There is also a marked effect of soil and climate upon 



220 MARTYRIA, OR 

the odor of plants, and in their narcotic constituents. 
Does not the same law affect man? 

The Italian violets grow sweeter as we climb the 
Alpine slopes ; the mignonette blooms with greater 
perfection and jjerfume as we ajDproach the shoi'es of 
the lowlands of the Mediterranean. We find the finest 
types of the human race among the uplands and the 
mountains ; below, on the low coasts and river margins, 
where pestilences are generated, the physical and mental 
forces do not fully expand, and we find there neither 
liberty, virtue, nor science. 

Dr. Rusdorf, in his work on the influence of European 
climate, regards the temperate zone as the brain-making 
region, and attempts to prove it by physiological deduc- 
tions. The brain of the Caucasian, he says, determines 
the 'superiority over the other races, and it is the standard 
of the organism. This, he maintains, is produced by 
the richness of albumen in the blood, which is also de- 
pendent upon the oxygen of pure air. The extensive 
observations of the English Registrar-General show in- 
disputably that the elevation of the soil exercises as 
decided an influence on the English race as it does on 
the native races of other climes and soils. They also 
show that the finest animals are raised in the healthiest 
districts. We see that certain heights above the plains 
are remarkably exempt from maladies which devastate 
nations inhabiting lower levels. Cholera, remittent fever, 
yellow fever, and plague, disappear at well-defined degrees 
of elevation. 

At Vera Cruz, and along its latitude, the yellow fever 
vanishes at the height of three thousand feet above the 
Gulf shores. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 221 

The Prussian, in his " Medicinische Geographie," ap- 
pears to indicate with great degree of certainty the Hmits 
and ahitudes of the three zones, into which he clas- 
sifies the catarrhal, the dysenteric, and the scrofulous dis- 
eases. The scrofulous zone ceases at an altitude of two 
thousand feet above the level of the sea, and here, he says, 
there is no pulmonary consumption, scrofula, cancer, or 
typhus fever. " It is," says Babinet, " the climate of each 
country which permits or arrests the development of the 
human race, which, joined with the industry of populations, 
imposes limits to the numerical force of each meteorological 
district, and which subsists four million of men in fertile 
Belgium, which is no more than a small fraction of the 
territory of France, whilst Siberia can with difficulty 
nourish a part of that number with an extent which is 
twenty-six times that of France." " All over the wcti'ld, 
physical circumstances," exclaims Draper, " control the 
human race." 



It is vain to assert that the atmospheres of the maritime 
or the low levels do not affect the physical and mental 
condition o(_men ; and after all, Fontenelle was right when 
he maintained, in a curious paradox, that inspiration is a 
barometer that varies, which mounts to genius or descends 
to absurdity, according to the inconstancy of the weather ; 
that there are unhealthy countries, full of mists, winds, 
tempests, that never produce clear understandings ; and, 
on the contrary, there are lands with beautiful skies and 
fields filled with sunlight and roses which give out flashes 
of divine light. 



222 MARTYRIA, OR 

Nearly all of the Grecian lyrists were born in the 
enchanting climates, and among the beautiful scenes of 
the Asiatic shore or the isles of the yEgean Sea. Most 
of the eminent men of Italy rose from similar inspirations, 
which Michael Angelo observed when speaking of Vasari 
in terms of admii'ation. Historians say that the sun was 
never softer, the heavens brighter, the roses more prolific, 
the winds more perfumed, than in the dawn of the eigh- 
teenth century, which produced that " wild garland of 
beautiful women who recalled by their graces, their genius, 
the courtesans of Greece," which gave birth to those phi- 
losophers who gave a new impetus to liberty and religion. 



XX. 

According to some writers, the unequal distribution of 
solar heat over the earth is the cause of marked differ- 
ences in national character ; others refer the distinctive 
effects to the quality of the air they breathe. Arbuthnot 
maintains that air not only fashions the body, but has 
also had great influence in forming language ; that the 
close, serrated method of speaking of Northern nations 
was due to coldness of the climate, and hesitation of 
opening the mouth ; whilst the sweet, sonorous phrases of 
temperate climes, like those of the Mediterranean, were 
due to the mildness of climate, where the vocal organs 
could be exposed without danger. " It is incontestable," 
also writes Alfred Maury, in his " Earth and Man," " that 
climate has upon the mode of government a considerable 
influence, because it exercises an immediate effect upon 
the character of individuals. In the warm countries. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 23^ 

under an enei-\\iting atmosphere, where all inclines to 
effeminacy and idleness, the soul has not that energy and 
that foixe of will necessary to a people who wish to be 
free. Under a severe and cold climate, to the contrary, 
the character acquires more of energy, and the body more 
of activity. The passions are less violent, and leave to 
the reason a freer exercise. In the hot climes the in- 
stincts are impetuous, and they pass from an extreme of 
dejection to a state of exaltation which produces revolu- 
tions, insurrections, but which do not establish the .:ide- 
pendence. For, to the contrary, these violent crises intro- 
duce retaliation ; and in the sanguinary conflicts, the 
power of an individual, although tyrannical, appears as 
a benefit, or is accepted as a necessity." 



XXI. 

The anger of the European has always raged with un- 
definable fury, when once aroused, in these southern lati- 
tudes, and especiall}'^ in the regions in question. The 
spirit is the same, whether we review the cruel and use- 
less extermination of the Indians in Cuba or Florida ; the 
massacres of the Mexicans by the merciless Spaniards ; 
the internecine slaughter of the French, English, and 
Sf)aniards along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, 
and Florida ; the extermination of whole tribes, like the 
Yemassee, or the forced removal of the red men from the 
broad lands of their birthplace and inheritance. All 
show the implacable depth of his avarice or his ire. It 
was not merely the honor of subjugation, of conquering 
strange races, tliat was the object of the politics, and that 



224 MARTYRIA, OR 

excited the emulation of these iron-mailed and iron- 
hearted men and their descendants : it seems to have 
been an irresistible desire to immolate human races, to 
glut with blood that thirst for destruction which arises from 
depraved and burning hearts. 

It was the same spirit, under the mask of avarice, that 
tore the vs^ell-behaved Creeks and Cherokees from the 
homes of their ancestors, and banished them to the prairies 
of the West ; that hunted down the last Seminole in the 
everglades of Florida, where there are to-day twenty mil- 
lions of acres of land unsold and unoccupied. 

It was the same spirit that, in later times, recklessly and 
ruthlessly destroyed, at Camp Sumter, an army of free- 
men, under tlie pretence of treating them as prisoners of 
war. 

XXII. 

Yet this depraved fury does not appear to have been 
natural to the soil, climate, or the native races, as observed 
by the early navigators ; although Ponce de Leon received 
his death-wound from them when he sought the fountain 
of youth in the everglades of Florida, and De Soto en- 
countered fierce opposition from the red men of the forest 
when he pursued his way towards the Appalachian moun- 
tains in search of the mines of gold. But nevertheless 
the Europeans were treated almost always with kindness 
whenever they approached the Indian with good inten- 
tions. 

Contrast the present time and the people with the period 
and the natives when the great Navigator discovered the 
adjacent isles. " Nature is here," he exclaims, " so pro- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 335 

lific, that property has not produced the feehngs of ava- 
rice or cupidity. These people seem to live in a golden 
age, happy and quiet, amid open and endless gardens, 
neither surrounded by ditches, divided by fences, nor pro- 
tected by walls. They behave honorably towards one 
another, without laws, without books, without judges. 
They consider him wicked who takes delight in harm- 
ing another. This aversion of the good to the bad seems 
to be all their legislation." 

These people with natural sentiments have passed 
away, and new races, with strange and repulsive ideas, 
have taken their place. " Like the statue of Glaucus, 
that time, the sea, the storms have so disfigured that it 
resembles less a god than a ferocious beast, the human 
soul, altered in the bosom of society by a thousand causes 
rising without cessation, by the acquisition of a multitude 
of creeds and errors, by the changes produced in the con- 
stitution of bodies by the continual shock of passions, has 
caused a change in appearance almost unrecognizable ; 
and we sooner find, instead of the being acting always by 
certain and invariable principles, instead of that celestial 
and majestic simplicity in which the Creator has left his 
impress, the deformed contrast of the understanding in 
delirium, and of the passion which pretends to reason." 

xxiir. 

Wherever society forms and sustains itself, there must 
be adopted certain rules and laws to maintain it. 

These seemingly arbitrary laws represent the interest? 
the passions, and opinions of those who establish tliet 
10* 



226 MARTYRIA, OR 

and they differ widely, according to the nature of the men 
and the climate which they inhabit. 

The inhabitants of hot climes and the cold zones pre- 
sent strange contrasts in their natural ideas of justice, as 
well as in instincts and appetites. The Turk regards in- 
temperance as a crime, and polygamy as a virtue. The 
Englishman looks upon the one with complaisance, but 
regards the other with horror. Thus reason yields to 
physical force, or to the differences of climate ; and what 
men call virtue in one clime, loses its force and beauty in 
another. Yet there are natural laws older than the 
empires of force or reason ; more ancient than society 
itself; more powerful and sublime than the passions and, 
interests of men. These laws of kindness, of mercy, of 
friendship, like elementaiy language, come from divina- 
tion. 

Nature has planted certain instincts in the bosoms of 
all the different races of the globe alike ; and these be- 
come developed according to cultivation, or debased 
according to degrading influences. The good of society 
may define the measure between good and evil, but it 
cannot extinguish the principles, or obliterate the sharply 
defined distinctions. The will of the Creator has mani- 
fested itself clearly in the workings of the natural world, 
if it has not been revealed to us in those tablets which fell 
from the skies. 

XXIV. 

The benign influences of society, the exercise of polite- 
ness and reason, inspire polished and agreeable manners ; 
yet, in the midst of these, we find men who think barbar- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 227 

ity to be one of their rights ; and they abuse their fellow- 
creatures without pretext, and commit murder without 
necessity, which is a degree of ferocity below that of the 
carnivorous animals ; for they destroy life only when im- 
pelled by the motives of hunger. Societies of men are 
institutions of nature, and they are founded upon the 
principies of mutual obligations. Society relapses into 
barbarism when the golden rule of " doing as we would 
be done by" is violated ; when individual liberty is lost; 
and when man treats his fellow-man as property under 
the right of force, and therefore without legal relations. 
Constitutions are the indices of the education and the 
aspiration of nations, and they keep pace with the on- 
ward march of intelligence. These become altered and 
modified, as the intellect and hearts of men expand ; and 
it is nothing but bigotry that believes in the inviolability, 
the perfection of the doctrines and tenets of men in the 
present or the past. The wise man, says the old prov- 
erb, often changes his opinion, the fool never. 

XXV. 

Slavei-y appears to be coeval with war ; and war is as 
ancient as the human race. Plutarch believed that there 
had been a time, a golden age, when there were neither 
masters nor slaves. The human mind, at the time when 
Plutarch wrote, was almost controlled by the empire of 
force. The selfishness and superstition of society fet- 
tered the nobility of nature, and healthy reason could not 
assume its rightful sway. 

The depth of the philosophical reasoning, the degree 
of humanity of one of the brighest periods of antiquity, 



228 MARTYRIA, OR 

may be comprehended from the "Politics" of Aristotle, 
when he says, " To the Greeks belongs dominion over the 
barbarians, because the former have the understanding 
requisite to rule, the latter, the body only to obey. For 
the slave, considered simply as such, no friendship can be 
be entertained, but it may be felt for him, as he is a man," 
Some of the ancient nations, the most enthusiastic in the 
dreams of liberty, were the most savage and stern in their 
laws concerning their slaves ; and they adhered to their 
brutal doctrines in defiance of nature with singular te- 
nacity. The right of life and death over the slave was 
one of the fundamental principles of the society of the 
Athenians, Lacedemonians, Romans, and Carthaginians, 

Strange condition of society among men who culti- 
vated the arts and sciences so successfully ! Yet it does 
not appear that any legislator attempted to abrogate ser- 
vitude. 

Stranger still that the glorious period of the reign of 
democracy at Athens should not have brought with it the 
universal freedom of men, when liberty was the divine 
ideal of its aspirations. 



Not until the star of Christianity rose above the 
horizon of the pagan and superstitious woi'ld, softening 
the hearts of men and revealing to them a new life, did 
Slavery vanish from among refined and generous societies, 
under the charter, Pro amore Dei, pro niercede animce. 
And never has it reappeared, except among those nations 
who have become debased from avarice, or depraved by 
ambition. When cupidity allows fanaticism to blind the 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



229 



mind with the behcf that savages or negroes can be more 
easily converted to Christianity whilst in slavery than in 
freedom, then there is an end to social progress. Yet 
such were the ideas of Louis XIII. when he consigned 
the negroes of his colonies to Slavery. And such has 
been the creed of the slaveholders and breeders of 
America. The monstrous doctrine imjDosed itself upon 
the understandings of the slave faction, as the supersti- 
tions of the false prophets have fettered and crushed the 
minds of the pagan nations. It has debased their natural 
sentiments, as well as it has depressed and perverted their 
natural talents and virtues. " In the same manner," said 
Longinus, " as some children always remain pygmies, 
whose infant limbs, fettered by the prejudices and habits 
of servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain 
that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the 
ancients, who, living under a popular government, wrote 
with the same freedom as they acted." 

XXVII. 

We may learn from the history of the past, if we will 
not accept the data of the present, how climate, food, 
domesticity, or recognized customs of society may alter 
the minds and dispositions of men ; how they may 
gradually build up governments, founded upon monstrous 
ideas, and yet in unison with the compunctions of their 
conscience. Ascribe the origin to any cause you will, it 
does not alter the revolting facts, nor lessen the repulsive- 
ness of the absurdity, nor the enormity of the crime. 
Volney believed " that the social institutions called 



230 MARTYRIA, OR 

Government and Religion were the true sources and 
regulators of the activity or indolence of individuals 
and nations ; that ,they v\^ere the efficient causes which, 
as they extend or limit the natural or superfluous wants, 
limit or extend the activity of all men. A proof that 
their influence operates in spite of the difference of 
climate and soil is, that Tyre, Carthage, and Alexandria 
formerly possessed the same industry as London, Paris, 
and Amsterdam ; that the Buccaneers and the Malayans 
have displayed equal turbulence and courage with the 
Normans, and that the Russians and Polanders have 
the apathy and indifference of the Hindoos and the 
Negroes. But, as civil and religious institutions ai'e 
perpetually varied and changed by the passions of men, 
their influence changes and varies in very short intervals 
of time. Hence it is that the Romans commanded by 
Scipio resembled so little those governed by Tiberius, 
and that the Greeks of the age of Aristides and Themis- 
tocles were so unlike those of the time of Constantine." 

Volney observes that " the moral character of nations, 
taken from that of individuals, chiefly depends on the 
social state in which they live ; since it is true that our 
actions ai'e governed by our civil and religious laws, and 
since our habits are no more than a repetition of those 
actions, and our character only the disposition to act in 
such a manner under such circumstances, it evidently fol- 
lows that these must essentially depend on the nature of 
the government and religion." 

Says Addison, " In all despotic governments, though a 
particular prince may fivor arts and letters, there is a 
natural degeneracy of mankind, as you may observe from 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



231 



Augustus's reign, how the Romans lost themselves by de- 
grees, until they fell to an equality with the most barba- 
rous nations that surrounded them. Look upon Greece 
under its free states, and you would think its inhabitants 
lived in different climates and under ditlerent heavens 
from those at present, so different are the geniuses which 
are formed under Turkish slavery and Grecian liberty. 

" Besides poverty and want, there are other reasons that 
debase the minds of men who live under Slavery, though 
I look on this as the principal. The natural tendency of 
despotic powers to ignorance and barbarity, though not 
insisted upon by others, is, I think, an unanswerable ar- 
gument against that form of government, as it shows how 
repugnant it is to the good of mankind and the perfection 
of human nature, which ought to be the great end of all 
civil institutions." 

" Liberty should reach every individual of a people, as 
they all share one common nature ; if it only spreads 
among pailicular branches there had better be none at all, 
since such a liberty only aggravates the misfortune of 
those who are deprived of it, by setting before them a dis- 
agreeable subject of comparison." 

" The pride of Athens," writes Mirabeau, " and the 
jealousy of the Greeks, banished forever the liberty of 
those countries, so long fortunate." 

Such is and always was our world, covered from time 
to time with conquerors and slaves, because the conquer- 
ing, in forging the irons of the unhappy, with which they 
bound them, sharpen those which must bind dicm in 
turn. 

Such is and always will be man, from time to time despot 



233 MARTYRIA, OR 

and slave, for man, denaturalized by servitude, becomes 
readily the most ferocious of animals if he escapes an 
instant from oppression. There is but one step from the 
despot to the slave, from the slave to the despot, and the 
chain becomes them alike. 



There ai^e strange forces constantly at work : civiliza- 
tions spring up, disappear, and sometimes, but rarely, re- 
turn again after a sleep of ages : it seems as though genius 
laid fallow for a period, like the golden grains. 

The Greek mind teaches the Arabs under the Caliphs 
of Bagdad and Cordova, and in turn the Arabian influence 
instructs the reviving European mind after the dark ages. 
The fall of Constantinople crushed the Greek mind com- 
pletely. The genius and the " godlike men " of Rome 
vanished under the influence of the strong blood of the 
Goths, and the flourishing nations of the African shore 
have yielded so completely to physical and moral causes, 
that we justly doubt the story of their magnificence, 
their power, their intelligence. 

We see the eftete races infused with the fresh blood ; the 
vigorous juices of the Scandinavians march forward with 
unparalleled pace to the triumphs of reason and philoso- 
phy. The pure, warm, healthy vitality of the North re- 
calls to life the exact sciences, the laws of reasoning, and 
philosophy, and sesthetics, which, arising from Grecian 
genius, had slumbered for a thousand j^ears. 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 



XXIX. 



233 



In the slave lands of America a high order of intellect 
was proclaimed ; but when analysis approached, it sank 
into mediocrity, or vanished into dust, like the forms in the 
ancient tombs when exposed to the light of heaven. 
Slavery has produced nothing but horror. The flashes 
of light that have burst forth through its mists have been 
the expiring efi:brts of genius. Here the sciences have 
always languished and declined to take root, for the}' are 
the offspring of genius and reason. The arts never ap- 
peared, for the spirit of imitation never arose. To culti- 
vate the sciences, there is need of exalted desire, which 
comes from healthy and prosj^erous races or from celestial 
fire. Here there was the barbarity of ignorance ; the only 
desires were to Increase the enormities of their crimes, by 
the spread and general adoption of Slavery, and to conceal 
its proportions and influences beneath a cloud of mental 
darkness, which Is frightful to contemplate, when jDlaced 
in comparison with Intelligent communities like New 
England, Belgium, and Prussia. 

They thought to perpetuate an aristocratic power, and 
transmit the inheritance of Slavery as a blessing, but they 
forgot that In the formation of happy nations and states 
humanity forms the broad base ; they forgot that ambi- 
tious and avaricious families quickly degenerate and dis- 
appear completely from the earth. The vicissitudes of 
political life hasten that decline which is commenced by 
riches and rank, when supported by morbid ideas and 
sentiments. 

The noble families of Athens and Corinth, the patrician 



234 MARTYRIA, OR 

body at Rome, vanished so rapidly as to excite the sur- 
prise of the nations they governed. The names of the 
descendants of the founders of Venice, written in the 
Libro di Oro, are no longer to be found among the living 
in Italy. 

The same law is silently at work in our times. 



The inequalities of the earth's surface are like the 
rugosities of the human brain : the depths of the one 
contain the richest and most inexhaustible treasures of . 
mineral wealth, as the wrinkles of the other collect the 
stores of mental lore. As the surface of the brain be- 
comes less marked and rugged, the strength and scope 
of the mind vanish, and approach the standard of the 
lower animals ; and likewise, as the elevated lands of the 
earth shrink in form, and sink into the level of the plain, 
so the characters of the races who inhabit them lose force 
and elevation. 

Sometimes the minds of men are the reflections of the 
beauties and sublimities of nature. Sometimes men be- 
come degraded, and nature then does not inspire. 



The lofty and diversified mountain range, or system of 
ranges, known as the Appalachian or Alleghany, rises or 
reappears in the State of New York, midway between 
the Atlantic coast and the shores of those fresh-water 
seas, Erie and Ontario. It then stretches down south- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 235 

westward, with its adjacent spurs, through the great 
States of Pennsylvania and Virginia ; then, dividing, it 
forms, with its eastern range, the western and northern 
limit of North and South Carolina and Georgia ; and 
with the western it intersects Tennessee, forming that 
beautiful basin known among the white men as East Ten- 
nessee, but among the traditions of the red men as the 
Garden of the Manitou — their God. In Northern Ala- 
bama, the separated ranges seemingly unite ; and passing 
southward, towards the central portion of the State, the 
mountain summits gradually contract, and finally sink into 
the level of the great alluvial plains, which stretch away, 
without undulation, to the shores of the Gulf. These 
huge masses of rock, dislocated and elevated like the 
Vosges and the Hartz Mountains at the close of the car- 
boniferous or devonian period of the earth's age, contain, 
with the adjacent and connecting bands, — which are com- 
posed of the Silurian, primitive, and metamoriDhic ledges, 
— most of the accessible mineral wealth of the republic. 
And the collective beds of iron, coal, marble, zinc, cop- 
per, and gold are unsurpassed in similar extent and rich- 
ness by the mines of any country of the known world, 
with the exception of those wonderful deposits of ores and 
minerals among the unexplored and almost inaccessible 
recesses and plateaus of the Sierra Nevada or the Andes. 
With the exception of the northern extremity of this 
mountain group, these mines of natural wealth may be 
said to have been unexplored. Below the rich and popu- 
lous State of Pennsylvania, the hum of human industry 
ceases ; for we then pass into die paralyzing shadow of 
Slavery. This Slavery forbade the development of tlie 



236 MARTYRIA, OR 

earth's treasures, as well as the enlightenment of the 
minds of the poor and ignorant whites. The forges of 
Vulcan would have hammered out and bi'oken into frag- 
ments the chains of that bondage which not only op- 
pressed the fettered blacks, but debased, with its corrod- 
ing influence, the competing labor of the white man. 

The slaveholders concealed this immense natural wealth 
from the eyes of science from motives of policy ; and 
rather than incur the hazard of revolution, by educating 
the masses of their own people, they preferred to neglect 
their natural advantages, and to send to distant and even 
foreign lands the products of their fields and their system., 
to be worked up into the marvellous fabrics of human 
ingenuity and skill. This same State of Virginia, which 
is the real gateway to the empires of the West, and 
which is not surpassed in natural physical advantages by 
any equal extent of territory on the globe, is the most 
ignorant of all of the States of the republic. Ninety' 
thousand of its native-born free people, over twenty years 
of age, before the war could not read nor write ; whilst 
sterile and stormy Maine, with her cold lands and colder 
skies, contained but two thousand of the same class, out 
of a population more than half as great. And New Eng- 
land, with a population of almost three times as great as 
the free people of Virginia, is ashamed by the number of 
seven thousand illiterate natives past the age of twenty. 
Who will wonder at the display of barbarity and audacity 
when the statistics of education and ignorance are ex- 
hibited? "Education and liberty," says Mirabeau, "are 
the bases of all social harmony and all human prosperity." 

Which can civilization curse the most, London or Am- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 237 

sterdam ? the Dutch who introduced SJaveiy, or the Eng- 
lish who thought Virginia a good place to "colonize 
aristocratic stupidity," and who sent colonists, who were, 
according to the historian, " fitter to breed a riot than to 
found a colony." The condition of the present day shows 
how rigidly the first instructions have been observed and 
enforced. " Thank God," writes one of its early gover- 
nors to the English Privy Council, " thank God there are 
no free schools or printing, and I hope we shall not have 
any these hundred years ! for learning has brought diso- 
bedience and heresy and sects into the world, and print- 
ing has divulged them and libels against the best govern- 
ment. God keep us from both ! " 



XXXII. 

And so these mines, and fields, and forests, remain to 
the present day, unsurveyed, unexplored and unknown, 
save to a few wanderers of science. 

In Northern Alabama, where the terminating slopes of 
this upheaval of rocks disappear beneath the level of the 
vast cotton fields, which number their acres by the mil- 
lion, there appear enormous deposits of ii^on ore, of ex- 
traordinary richness and depth, lying in juxtaposition 
with corresponding beds of limestones and coal. 

Here is alone sufficient material for the iron fingers 
and forges and the steam power to fabricate the vegetable 
growths, the harvests of the vast and fertile plains of the 
entire South, and to build up with enduring form those 
great and thriving cities which are seen in the dim vista 
of the future of the Mississippi Valley, with its hundred 



238 MARTYR! A, OR 

millions of people.. These elevations, when denuded of 
their immense primeval forests of pine and oak, will be 
covered with constant verdure, affording sure sustenance 
to numberless flocks and herds of kine, which will require 
less care than the cattle of the plains of Texas or the 
pampas of Peru, since Nature, with her caverns and nar- 
row valleys, will afford shelter from the destructive storms 
of winter and the chilling blasts of spring. 

Between the two great spurs of the divided mountain 
range which encompass the head-waters and tributaries of 
the Tennessee, appears the garden spot of the Republic : 
the soils, enriched by the decomposition of the blue lime- 
stones, are here of great strength and endurance ; the 
innumerable streams are of sufficient force and volume 
to satisfy the wants of industry and mechanics, whilst the 
lofty mountains, which rise to the height of seven thou- 
sand feet above the ocean, with their broad and impres- 
sive shadows, temper the atmospheres, so that the body 
can labor and the mind expand. 

To the natural beauties of the landscape art has yet 
added nothing : from the teeming harvests of the valle3's, 
from the massive ledges of minerals, man has yet detracted 
nothing. 

Nature here is almost inexhaustible. 

No wonder that the dying Indian returns to the region 
of the Hiwassee to end his days on earth, impelled by an 
irresistible desire to behold once more the wonders and 
beauties of natural scenery, which are preserved among 
the fading traditions of the tribes tliat liave been banished 
to the far off western frontiers. 



ANDERSO>rV'ILLE PRISON. 239 

XXXIII. 

From beneath the eastern aspect of the mountains of 
Alabama, a broad belt of metamorphic rocks bursts forth, 
and trends to the north-eastward, following the mountain 
ranges in almost parallel lines through the States of Geor- 
gia, South and North Carolina, and disapjDearing in 
Virginia beneath the waters of the Potomac. These lands 
of decomposed mica and talcose schists contain through- 
out their broad extent particles of gold ; and some of the 
narrow and circumscribed fields are unsurpassed in their 
undeveloped richness by any of the known gold fields of 
similar extent in the world. These auriferous soils, 
owned or controlled by the slaveholder, have yielded, by 
the superficial scratchings and washings of the slave and 
the poor white, during the period since the discovery of 
the precious metal, about forty millions of dollars. There 
are not less than one hundred inillions more within the 
reach and grasp of skilled and determined labor. 

Along beside, and traversing through and through these 
golden rocks and sands, occur immense bands of itacolu- 
mite, known, from its flexibility, as the elastic sandstone. 
They stretch from Alabama to the interior of North Car- 
olina, bursting forth now as great flexible bands of stone, 
and then bulging out as entire mountains. This singular 
formation is the same that has been recognized in Brazil, 
Ural Mountains, and Hindostan, as the matrix of the 
diamond ; and here, nearly one hundred of the precious 
gems of fine water have been picked up from the earth, 
from time to time, by the careless observer. 



240 MARTYRDV, OR 

xxxrv. 

This upheaval of the earth's surface, reminding the 
geographer of the Italian peninsula, vaguely perhaps in 
form, in natui'al fertility and in purity of climate, is des- 
tined to play an important part in the future advance- 
ment of the Republic. For here is the heart of the 
eastern portion of the continent, geographically, clima- 
tologically, and mineralogically. Here Nature is too 
prolific to be long neglected by the cupidity or the ambi- 
tion of men, when the barriers and obstructions of in- 
quiry and settlement, which have been reared against the 
advance and design of civilization by the Slave Faction, 
shall have been removed. When the tide of European 
emigration, which steadily brings to the New World the 
pure blood and youth of races, turns its stream of indus- 
trial life towards these valleys, mountain slopes, and ter- 
races ; when the laws of alimentation are understood and 
properly observed ; when the spire of the school-house rises 
in the vista of every landscape, or points the way at every 
cross-road, — then we may expect to see a new variety of 
the human race appear, possessed of remai'kable physical 
strength and beauty, and whose ideas and efforts, typical 
of the healthy and developed mind, will, like the influ- 
ences of New England and Scandinavia, give fresh im- 
pulse and impress to the civilizations of the earth. 






ANDERSOKVILLE PRISON. 2d.I 



Races of men — nations — even the lesser communities, 
dunng the periods of their social existence, erect monu- 
ments, or leave, unwillingly sometimes, traces of their 
progress, their advancement, their culture, as memorials 
for the admiration, or as the objects of horror for the 
contempt, of future generations. 

The gigantic pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt tell of 
the civilization of their extinct founders ; the airy and 
graceful columns, with the wonderful sculptures of the 
Parthenon, disclose the degree of the perfection and the 
delicacy of the Greek mind. Rome, though long since 
vanished from among the nations of the earth, has left 
the impress of her force, grandeur, and wisdom in those 
laws which now direct the tribunals of men ; the lofty 
and colossal structures of the temples of the Rhine are the 
emblems of fixith as well as the masterpieces of the Gothic 
heart and intellect ; even the mysterious and history-for- 
gotten Druids have left their rude reminiscences in those 
weird circles of enormous and cyclopeaii rocks, beyond 
which all is darkness. 

Thus men perpetuate their memories among the annals 
of the earth. But after their long period of existence and 
progress, what have the Slave Faction left for tlie historian 
to contemplate with satisfaction? for an attentive world 
to study, imitate, and admire? What beyond this appall- 
ing cloud of ignorance have they left as legacy to the 
poor white? What besides misery, violence, and crime 
have they bequeathed to the black man? With what 
treasi.u-es, in the estimation of mankind, have they cn- 
II 



242 MARTYRIA, OR ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 

riched themselves, or left as inheritance to their degen- 
erate oflspring? 

The history of this remorseless pai'ty, its selfish and 
sordid aims, its cruel results, will always find place among 
the annals of civilized man so long as the noblest acts of 
men are admired, and so long as the dark deeds of cruelty 
appall and overshadow our better nature. Thermojoylce, 
Marathon, and the holy sites whei^e Liberty has struggled 
for existence, and where men have risen above the tram- 
mels of their earthly natures, will be remembered no 
longer than this field of blood and torture among the 
obscure forests of Georgia. 



Who will say that Nature and Libeiiy were the genii 
who directed the labors of the leaders of the Rebellion? 

Soil, climate, hereditary traditions, and customs of so- 
ciety, give to a people the fierceness and gentleness of 
character, as well as the pei-fection of mind and body. 
This fatal Stockade, with the silent mound of earth which 
contains its harvest of death, is a fair and just exponent 
of the bigoted and selfish policy that struck down the 
Flag of the Republic ; of that cruel and vmearthly spirit 
which has despised all the " attachments with which God 
has formed the chain of human sympathies," and which, 
without a tear of remorse, has strewn the Atlantic Ocean 
with a broad pathway of human bones ! 



APPENDIX. 



NOTES. 



Since the close of the war, and since the time when the sketch of 
the graveyard was taken, Colonel iloore, of the U. S. Quarter- 
master's Department, has been to Andersonville, under orders from the 
Secretary of War, and arranged the cemetery in a very acceptable 
manner. All of the stakes were removed, and neat head-boards 
placed instead, with the names of the dead properly painted in black 
letters. The ground has been cleared up by this efficient officer, and 
the cemetery carefully laid out into walks, adorned with flowers and 
trees. Colonel Moore, in his report to the Quartermaster-General, 
writes the following account : — 

" The dead were found buried in trenches, on a site selected by the 
rebels, about three hundred yards from the stockade. The trenches 
varied in length from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards. The bodies 
in the trenches were from two to three feet below the surface, and in 
several instances, where the rain had washed away the earth, but a 
few inches. Additional earth was, however, thrown upon the graves, 
making them of still greater depth. So close were they buried, with- 
out coffins, or the ordinary clothing to cover their nakedness, that not 
more than twelve inches were allowed to each man. Indeed, the little 
tablets marking their resting-places, measuring hardly ten inches 
in width, almost touch each other. United States soldiers, while 
prisoners at Andersonville, had been detailed to inter their compan- 
ions ; and by a simple stake at the head of each grave, which bore a 
number corresponding with a similarly numbered name upon the An- 
dersonville hospital record, I was enabled to identify, and mark with a 
neat tablet, similar to those in the cemeteries at Washington, the 
number, name, rank, regiment, company, and date of death of twelve 
thousand four hundred and sixty-one graves ; there being but four 
hundred and fifty-one that bore the sad inscription, ' Unknown U. S. 

Soldier.' " 

(^3) 



244 APPENDIX. 

Extract from letters of the rebel Senator Foote, dated Montreal, 
June 21, I860. 

"Touching the Congressional report referred to, I have this to say: 
A month or two anterior to the date of said report, I learned from a 
government officer of respectability, that the prisoners of war then 
confined in and about Richmond were suffering severely from want, 
of provisions. He told me, further, that it was manifest to him that 
a systematic scheme was on foot for subjecting these unfortunate men 
to starvation ; that the Commissary-General, Mr. Northrup (a most 
wicked and heartless wretch), had addressed a communication to Mr. 
Scddon, the Secretary of War, proposing to withhold meat altogether 
from military prisoners then in custody, and to give them nothing but 
bread and vegetables; and that Mr. Seddon had indorsed the docu- 
ment containing this communication affirmatively. I learned, further, 
that by calling upon Major Oukl, the commissioner for exchange 
of prisoners, I would be able to obtain further information upon the 
subject. I went to Major Ould immediately, and obtained the desired 
information. Being utterly unwilling to countenance such barbarity 
for a moment, — regarding, indeed, the honor of the whole South as 
concerned in the affiiir, — I proceeded without delay to the hall of the 
House of Representatives, called the attention of that strangely con- 
stituted body to the subject, and insisted upon an immediate committee 
of investigation." 



As "to the capacity of the bakery, any one can make his own esti- 
mates from the plan given. The foreman of the government bakery 
at Nashville, gives his views in the following note : — 

" SiB : Our system in wheaten flour bread is, five men bake si.x 
ovens full in the twelve hours ; one oven full, 36 pans; 9 loaves (18 
rations) in each pan ; 36 pans X 18 = 648 X 6 ovens full = 3888 X 
2 (for twenty-four hours) = 7776 rations : this is done bj' two ovens. 
Say six men on each oven (any more would be in the way), two and a 
half hours to knead and bake each oven full (almost impossible), ten 
ovens full in the twelve hours in the day time (two ovens five times 
full in the twelve hours), ten ovens full in the twelve hours in the 



APPENDIX. 



245 



night time, each oven full 40 pans, 12 rations in each (20 oz. of corn 
bread) ; 40 pans X 12 = 480 X 10 for day's work = 4800 + 4800 
for night work = 9600 rations in the twenty-four hours. 

Sir, all the above are in the extreme. Most respectfully, 

JonN WiTUERsi'ooN, Foreman U. S. Bakery." 



The hospital register gives the following data as to the number of 
prisoners present during each month, the number treated medically, 
and the average number of deaths : — 



) 





„ ^, """ 1' Kuraberof 1 
Month. 1 Prisoners. | 


Number in 1 
Hospital. 1 


Average 
DailjDcatlis. 


February, 


1864 • 




1,600 


33 




March, 


(< 










4,603 


909 


9 


April, 


" 










7,875 


870 


19 


!May, 


i( 










13,486 


1,190 


23 


June, 


" 










22,352 


1,605 


40 


July, 


" 










28,689 


2,156 


56 


August, 


" 










32,193 


3,709 


99 


September, 


" 










17,733 


3,026 


89 


October, 


(( 










5,885 


2,245 


51 


November, 


» 










2,024 


242 


16 


December, 


«« 










2,218 


431 


5 


January, 


1865. 










4,931 


595 


6 


February, 


li 










5,195 


365 


5 


March, 


<( 










4,800 


140 


3 


The greatest number of deaths, on any sing 


le day, was 


on the 23d 


of August, 


1864, an 


d was 


12 


7, 


or one death ev 


cry eleven n 


linutcs. 



The fact of the employment of blood-hounds is too notorious to 
admit of doubt. Many packs of dogs were kept, and a profitable 
business was done in the catching of escaped prisoners. Ben Harris 
was seen to receive pay for the capture of sixty prisoners, at thirty 
dollars apiece. That some of the pursued were killed in the forests 
during the pursuit, ihere is no doubt in the writer's mind, from the 
evidence offered. 



246 



APPENDIX. 



The following table vras collated from the hospital records of the 
prison, and is believed, by the writer and clerks who were employed 
at the rebel office, to be quite correct : — 



Month. 


Deaths 

in 
Hospital. 


Deaths 
in 

Stockade. 


Deaths in 
.Small Po.K 
Hospital. 


Total. 


February, 1864. . 


1 






1 


March, " . 




262 


15 


5 


282 


April, " . 




471 


71 


34 


576 


May, " . 




633 


65 


10 


708 


June, " . 




1,041 


150 


10 


1,201 


July, «« . 




1,119 


614 


5 


1,738 


August, " • 




1,489 


1,592 




3,081 


September, " . 




1,255 


1,423 




2,678 


October, " . 




1,294 


301 




1,595 


November, " . 




494 






494 


December, " . 




166 


2 




168 


January, 1865. 




191 


8 




199 


February, '« . 




147 


.. 




147 


March, " . 




100 


•• 




100 


Total 


8,663 


4,241 


64 


12,968 


Hung in stockade for c 








6 


ered. . . 


. . . . 


. . . . 




Total deaths as re 


gist 


12,974 



The hospital records show that 17,873 patients were registered, and 
that 823 of these were exchanged, and about 25 took the oath of 
allegiance, leaving 17,048 to be accounted for, giving a mortality of 
seventy-six per cent. Besides the registered dead, there were some 
who perished by the falling of the excavations in the stockade, and 
others destroyed by hounds and hunters in the forests. 



The meteorological tables and the vegetal charts of Blodgett M'ill 
give the rain-fall of this region in comparison with the other districts 
of the United States. 



APPENDIX. 



247 



The following tabic, which Wcis compiled by the author from the 
official records of the British army, gives the number of soldiers who 
were killed in action, or afterwards perished from their wounds, in 
many of the great battles of the British empire : — 



Year. 1 Battles. 


Total Stroiigth 
eiij,'agcd. 


Estimated 
Deaths. 


1809. 


Talavera, 


22,100 


1,445 


1811. 


Albuera, 


9,000 


1,358 


1812. 


Salamanca, 


30,500 


770 


1813. 


Vittoria, 


42,000 


890 


1815. 


Ligny. 
Quatre Bras, 


... 


•• 




Wavre, 


49,900 


3,245 




Waterloo, 








New Orleans, 


6,000 


625 


1854. 


Crimea, 




4,595 


Total number of deaths from woi 


inds. . . . 


12,928 





STATISTICS FROM THE CENSUS REPORTS OF 1860. 
Georgia. 



Counties. 



Corn, 

bushels. 



Wheat, 
bushels. 



Cotton, 

bales. 



Potatoes, 
busliels. 



I Peas and 
Beans, bush. 



Macon. . . 
Lee. . . . 
Sumter. 
Dougherty, 
Total. . 



313,906 
319,653 
386,892 
356,812 



22,312 

2,250 

8,396 

553 



10,248 

14,445 

14,423 

9,580 



86,000 
G0,000 
92,234 
56,310 



37,836 
34,599 
12,483 
23,061 



1,377,263 I 33,5U | 48,696 | 294,544 | 108,019 



Counties. 

Macon 

Lee 

Sumter. . . . 

Dougherty. . . 

Total. . . . 



Land fmproved, 
acres. 



88,353 

85,840 

102,327 

91,470 

'367,9^ 



Land unim- 
proved, acres. 



Number of 
.Slaves. 



108,170 


4,865 


113,172 


4,947 


160,742 


4,890 


99,048 


6,079 



I 481,138 I 20,781 



248 



ACIMMMV. 



Tln'W VWM'O. i(\ lSr>0, u»-;(vly |UH>,000 ciittU" mul s\vi<>»> in [W St!\to of 
VUuiilii nlono, whilst Muiui- hail l>ut '.'00,000 «t t)\o suiwo X'mw. 
(\i\ny.\i\ ami Alubnn\a \m\ tk\s,vthrr. vi\ ISOO. .^.000.000 ot" cattlo !»ml 
s\vii\(>, ami thov produooil dvivu>sj tho saim- vi ar (»>oro than (>0,000,000 
biishols of ooru. 4.000,000 husht>ls ot" wheat, awil K'i.OOO.OOO Inishi'ln 
ofj'otatvH^s. All Now K>»,s;lainl, lUiviuy; tho saiwo pnioil, priulviooil but 
1,000.000 Inishi-ls of whoat awd 0,000,000 bvvshols v>f ooru, although 
ooutuining « iwilUon nu>ro ihh>j>Io than Uoorgia awil Alaha>\i«. 



Tho fvUlv>wiug is n roj^v of tin- ovvloc n-latiMs^ to tlu> tn-atiwi-ul k^( 
tho v>-Ih-1 lU'isoivtTs in tho hamU of tho I'uitv-vl States anthovitios. 
(.\Mitiast it with the vebtl barhaiitios. 

A. 

\ (>KlVri- Ol- t\>MMlSSAUY t}KNKUA». Ol' I'UlSONlCliS, ^ 
\YASUINUI\>N. .\\>Hl .v. IfilM. N 

\\\ nnthovvty of tho >Vav Popavtinont. tho t'ollowiujj Ko^ilatioivs 
will bo obsovvod at all stations w hoiv jniMnxors of wav and political vu' 
state pvisonovs a\o hehl. Tho Ko^nlations will sniuTsovlo thoso issued 
lVun> this othvo July 7. ISdl : - - 

I. *rhe l\>\nn\ainlinv;- OlUeor at eaih station is held aeoonntablo for 
the diseipliixe a\ul ijood order of his eon\n\aud, and for the soenvity of 
the pvisouevs; «»»d will take sueh lueasvues, with the means \daeed at 
his ilisposftl, «» will best seexive theso n>sults,\lIo will divide the i>vis- 
o»\t>»"s into eom)>anies. and w ill eause written reports to bi> made tv) 
him of their eomlitiim t>viry mvunitiij, showin^y; the ehaniivs nvade 
dnvinjj the piveedinj; twenty-fovir hours, jjivins; the nan\es of the 
••jv>ineil," "transferred." '-deaths," v<;e. vVt the end »>f every nvouth, 
t\>mn>;mders will se(\d to the I'ommissary liei\eral of Tiisoners a 
lu-tunv of Trisoners, givnn; nami-s and details to explain "altera- 
tions." If rvdls of "joined" ov "transferred" have l>een forwarded 
ilnrins;' the n\onth, it will be sntlleieut to refer to them on the return, 
aeeording to forn»s f\nnished. 



Al'l'lCNDlX. 



-49 



II. On tlu> aniviil (if iuiy prisoiKTs iil, iiiiy stiitioii, u ciinrnl coni- 
imrisou of tliciu witli (lie rolls wliicli uicoinpany llicm will I..' iiiiulr, 
and nil I'lTors on tlic rolls will he coi iccUd. When no roll iicconi- 
piinies the prisoners, one will ininu'dialily lie nmilc out, contiiinin^ all 
the information rocpiirod, as oorrcc'l, as can ho, from tlic statements of 
prisoners themselves. Wlien the prisoners are citizens, tlie town, 
county, and Stale from which lliey eome will be ^iven on the rolls, 
mider the headinj^s JvanU, iu^imeul, and (Nimpany. At slafions 
where prisoners are reeeived fre(|nently, and in small parlies, a list 
will he furnished every liflh day — the last one in tlie mmilli may lie 
for six days — of all prisoners reeeived dnriiif;; the jireeedinf^ (ive 
days. Iihmediately on llicir arrival, ])iisoneis will he re(piireil to 
f^ive up all arms and weapons of every deserijilion, of whirli tlu; 
Conimandiuf;- Ollicer will re((nire an accurate list to \n) made. Wlien 
prisoners are forwarded for (,'.\ehan>^e, chiplieate parole rolls, sii^ned hy 
the prisoners, will he sent witii them, and an ordinary roll will he 
sent to the Commissary (jieneral of Prisoni'rs. Wlien they are trans- 
ferred from one station to anothei', an ordinary roll will he sent witli 
them, and a copy of it to the ('ommissary General of I'risoneis. In 
all cases, the ollieer charged with conducting prisoncus will report to 
the officer under whose order he acts the execution of his service, fur- 
nishing a receipt for the prisoners delivered, and aix'ounting hy name 
for those not delivered ; which icpcut will he forwarded, without de- 
lay, to the (^)iiniiissary (ieiiera! ol' Trisoners, 

III. The hospital will be under the immediate ehargt; of the Hcnior 
Medical Officer pr(-'sent, wlio will be lield responsihh; to the (Join- 
manding Officer for its good order and the proper ticalne nl of the 
sick. A fund for this hospital will be created, as for othei' hos])itals. 
It will he kept separate from the fund of the liospital for the trrxjjjs, 
and will be expended for the objects speeilied, ami in the manni'r j)re- 
seribed, in paragraph 1212, Revised liegulations for the Army of l«(i.'}, 
except that the re(iuisition of the Medical Officer in charge, and the 
bill of ])urchase, before payment, shall bo approved l)y the (Command- 
ing Officer. When this "fund" is nufficiently large, it may he 
expended also for shirts and drawers for the sick, the expense of 
washing clothes, articles for policing purposes, and all articles and 



I 



250 APPENDIX. 

objects indispensably necessary to promote the sanitary condition of 
the hospital. 

IV. Surgeons in charge of hospitals where there are prisoners of 
war will make to the Commissary General of Prisoners, through the 
Commanding Officer, semi-monthly reports of deaths, giving names, 
rank, regiment, and company ; date and place of capture ; date and 
cause of death ; place of interment, and number of grave. Effects of 
deceased prisoners will be taken possession of by the Commanding 
Officer — the money and valuables to be reported to this office (see 
note on blank reports), the clothing of any value to be given to such 
prisoners as require it. Money left by deceased prisoners, or accruing 
from the sale of their effects, will be placed in the Prison Fund. 

V. A fund, to be called "The Prison Fund," and to be applied in 
procuring such articles as may be necessary for the health and con- 
venience of the prisoners, not expressly provided for by General Army 
Regulations, 1863, will be made by withholding from their rations 
such parts thereof as can be conveniently dispensed with. The Ab- 
stract of Issues to Prisoners, and Statement of the Prison Fund, shall 
be made out, commencing with the month of May, 1864, in the same 
manner as is prescribed for the Abstract of Issues to Hospital and 
Statement of the Hospital Fund (see paragraphs 1209, 1215, and 1246, 
and Form 5, Subsistence Department, Army Regulations, 1863), with 
such modifications in language as may be necessary. The ration for 
issue to prisoners will be composed as follows, viz. : — 

,^ , ^ , -(14 oz. per one ration, or 

Hard Bread, ? 

i 18 oz. Soft Bread one ration. 

Corn Meal 18 oz. per one ration. 

Beef, 14 " 

Bacon or Pork, .... 10 " " " 

Beans 6 qts. per 100 men. 

Hominy or Rice, ... 8 lbs. " " 

Sugar, 14 " " «< 

R. Coffee 5 lbs. ground, or 7 lbs. raw, per 100 men. 

Tea, 18 oz. per 100 men. 

Soap, 4 " " " 



APPENDIX. 



251 



Adamantine Candles, . . 5 Candles per 100 men. 

Tallow Candles, ... 6 " '• " 

Salt, 2 qts. '< « 

Molasses, ...... 1 qt. " '< 

Potatoes, 30 lbs. " « 

When beans are issued, hominy or rice will not be. If at any time 
it should seem advisa.ble to make any change in this scale, the circum- 
stances will be reported to the Commissary General of Prisoners for 
his consideration. 

VI. Disbursements to be charged against the Prison Fund will be 
made by the Commissary of Subsistence, on the order of the Com- 
manding Officer ; and all such expenditures of funds will be accounted 
for by the Commissary, in the manner prescribed for the disbursements 
of the Hospital Fund. When in any month the items of expenditures 
on account of the Prison Fund cannot be conveniently entered on the 
Abstract of Issues to Prisoners, a list of the articles and quantities 
purchased, prices paid, statement of services rendered, &c., certified 
by the Commissary as correct, and ajiproved by the Commanding 
Officer, will accompany the Abstract. In such cases it will only be 
necessary to enter on the Abstract of Issues the total amount of funds 
thus expended. 

VII. At the end of each calendar month, the Commanding Officer 
will transmit to the Commissary General of Prisoners a copy of the 
" Statement of the Prison Fund," as shown in the Abstract of Issues 
for that month, with a copy of the list of expenditures specified in 
preceding paragraph, accompanied by vouchers, and will indorse 
thereon, or convey in letter of transmittal, such remarks as the matter 
may seem to require. 

VIII. The Prison Fund is a credit with the Subsistence Depart- 
ment, and at the request of the Commissary General of Prisoners 
may be transferred by the Commissary General of Subsistence in the 
manner prescribed by existing Regulations for the transfer of Hospital 
Fund. 

IX. With the Prison Fund may be purchased such articles, not 
provided for by regulations, as may be necessary for the health and 



253 APPENDIX. 

proper condition of the prisoners, such as table furniture, cooking 
utensils, articles for policing, straw, the means for improving or en- 
larging the barracks or hospitals, &c. It will also be used to pay clerks 
and other employees engaged in labors connected with prisoners. No 
barracks or other structures will be erected or enlarged, and no alter- 
ations made, without first submitting a plan and estimate of the cost 
to the Commissary General of Prisoners, to be laid before the Secre- 
tary of War for his approval ; and in no case will the services of 
clerks or of other employees be paid for Avithout the sanction of the 
Commissary General of Prisoners. Soldiers employed with such 
sanction will be allowed 40 cents per day when employed as clerkif, 
stewards, or mechanics ; 25 cents a day when employed as laborers. 

X. It is made the duty of the Quartermaster, or, when there is 
none, the Commissary, under the orders of the Commanding Officer, 
to procure all articles required, and to hire clerks or other employees. 
All bills for service or for articles purchased will be certified by the 
Quartermaster, and will be paid by the Commissary on the order of 
the Commanding Officer, who is held responsible that all expenditures 
are for authorized purposes. 

XI. The Quartermaster will be held accountable for all propeiiy 
purchased with the Prison Fund, and he will make a return of it to 
the Commissary General of Prisoners at the end of each calendar 
month, which will show the articles on hand on the first day of the 
month ; the articles purchased, issued, and expended during the 
month ; and the articles remaining on hand. The return will be sup- 
ported by abstracts of the articles purchased, issued, and expended, 
certified by the Quartermaster, and approved by the Commanding 
Officer. 

XII. The Commanding Officer will cause requisitions to be made 
bj' his Quartermaster for such clothing as ma)' be absolutely necessarj' 
for the prisoners, which reqviisition will be approved by him, after a 
careful inquiry as to the necessity, and submitted for the approval of 
the Commissary General of Prisoners. 

The clothing will be issued by the Quartermaster to the prisoners, 
with the assistance and under the supervision of an officer detailed for 
the purpose, whose certificate that the issue has been made in his pres- 



APPENDIX. 



253 



ence will be the Quartermaster's vouchor for the clothing issuerl. 
From the 30th of April to the 1st of October, neither drawers nor 
socks will be allowed, except to the sick. When army clothing is 
issued, buttons and trimmings will be taken off the coats, and the 
skirts will be cut so short that the prisoners who wear them will not 
be mistaken for United States soldiers. 

XIII. The Sutler for the prisoners is entirely under the conti'ol of 
the Commanding Officer, who will require him to furnish the pre- 
scribed articles, and at reasonable rates. For this privilege the Siitler 
will be taxed a small amount by the Commanding Officer, according 
to the amount of his trade, which tax will be placed in the hands of 
the Commissary to make part of the Prison Fund. 

XIV. All money in possession of prisoners, or received by them, 
will be taken charge of by the Commanding Officer, who will give 
receipts for it to those to whom it belongs. Sales will be made to 
prisoners by the Sutler on orders on the Commanding Officer, which 
orders will be kept as vouchers in the settlement of the individual 
accounts. The Commanding Officer will procure proper books in 
which to keep an account of ail moneys deposited in his hands, these 
accounts to be always subject to inspection by the Commissary Gen- 
eral of Prisoners, or other inspecting officer. When prisoners are 
transferred from the post, the moneys belonging to them, with a state- 
ment of the amount due each, will be sent with them, to be turned 
over by the officer in charge to the officer to whom the prisoners are 
delivered, who will give receipts for the money. When prisoners are 
paroled, their money will be returned to them. 

XV. All articles sent by friends to prisoners, if proper to be de- 
livered, will be carefully distributed as the donors may request ; such 
as are intended for the sick passing through the hands of the Surgeon, 
who will be responsible for their proper use. Contributions must be 
received by an officer, who will be held responsible that they are de- 
livered to the person for whom they are intended. All uniform, 
clothing, boots, or equipments of any kind for military service, weap- 
ons of all kinds, and intoxicating liquors, including malt liquors, are 
among the contraband articles. The material for outer clothing should 
be gray, or some dark mixed color, and of inferior quality. Any 



I 



254 APPENDIX. 

excess of clothing, over what is required for immediate use, is con- 
traband. 

XVI. When prisoners are seriously ill, their nearest relatives, being 
loyal, may be permitted to make them short visits ; but under no other 
circumstances will visitors be admitted without the authority of the 
Commissary General of Prisoners. At those places where the guard 
is insidS the enclosure, persons having official business to transact with 
the Commander or other officer will be admitted for such purposes, 
but wilL not be allowed to have any communication with the pris- 
oners. 

XVII. Prisoners will be permitted to write and to receive letters, 
not to exceed one page of common letter paper each, provided the 
matter is strictly of a private nature. Such letters must be examined 
by a reliable non-commissioned officer, appointed for that purpose by 
the Commanding Officer, before they are forwarded or delivered to 
the prisoners. 

XVIII. Prisoners who have been reported to the Commissary Gen- 
eral of Prisoners will not be paroled or released except by authority 
of the Secretary of War. 

W. HOPFMAN, 

Col. 3d Infantry, Commissary General of Prisoners. 



NOTE. 

The publishers have the names of all of those soldiers who perished 
at Andersonville, the date of death, and the number of their graves ; 
and they contemplate publishing the list hereafter, if sufficient encour- 
agement is offered. 

Address LEE & SIIEPARD, 

149 Washington Street, Boston. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The Illustrations were drawn by the author from sketches upon 
the spot, and from photographs which were taken by the rebels during 
the occupation of the prison. The figures arc by Charles A. Barry, 
Esq., and the engraving by Henry Marsh, Esq. 

NnjIBEH l-ACE 

I. View from Main Gate (from rebel photograph) 2 

II. Vignette 7 

III. Bird's-eye View of Stockade 19 

IV. View of Officers' Stockade 21 

V. View of Interior of the Prison 29 

\T. View of Graveyard (from rebel photograph) 37 

VII. View of Dead Line (from rebel photograph) 48 

VIII. View of Gates 53 / 

IX. View of Mud Huts • 55 ^ 

X, View of Burial (from rebel photograph) 57 

XI. View of Bakery 61 

XII. View of Kitchen 63 

XIII. View of Blood-hound Hut 64"^ 

XIV. View of Utensils used by the Prisoners 96 t' 

XV, Map of Georgia 18 i 

XVI. Plan of Andersonvillc 20 v 

XVII. Plan of Prison 50 - 

XVIII. Plan of Bakery 60 



INDEX. 
BOOK FIRST. 



Page 

Introduction. Description of Andcisonville : Locality, Arrajitjenicnf, 
and Construction of the Camp 7-28 

BOOK SECOND. 

Descriptive : the Number of Prisoners compared with ike Armies of 
Alexander and Napoleon. The Dead compared with the Losses of the 
British Soldiers at Waterloo, Crimea, Spain, Mexican War, Sjc. 28-40 

(255) 



256 INDEX. 

BOOK TIIIRD. 

Describes at length the Stockade, xoith all the Arrangements, loith 
Comparisons, Ratio of Density, §c 40-68 

BOOK FOURTH. 

Relates to the Alimentation of the Prisoners, toith Comiiarisons with 
the Dietaries of Foreign Armies, Hospitals, Prisons, Scarcity of 
Food in the Prison, Abundance of Food mi the Coimtry, ^c. . 68-99 

BOOK FIFTH. 

Revicto of the Hospital — its Ajrangement and Results. . • . 99-113 

BOOK SIXTH. 

Relates to the Mortality as cojnjMred with that of our Arjnies a7id 
Prisons, also with Foreign Ar}nies, Prisons, and Hospitals, §c. 113-142 

BOOK SEVENTH. 

Relates to the Legal Right of Death over the Captive, icith the Views 
of the Ablest Wnters of Past Times, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mira- 
beau, i§-c. The Treatment of Prisoners of War by the Rebels con- 
trasted icith Usages of Civilized Nations. Regulations of the 
United Slates. Letter of General Butler on the Exchange of 
Pnsoners. Complicity of Jeff Davis, §c., S^c 142-194 

BOOK EIGHTH. 

Review of the Physical and Moral Causes, — Climatological, Ethno- 
logical, Social, S^c, — that have led to the Degeneration of the 
WJiite Race hi the South, and the consequent Degree of Perversity 
and Barbarity, S^c 194-242 

APPENDIX. 

Notes, Statislieal Tables. General Orders of the United States in 
Reference to Treat7ne7it of tlieir P}isoners 243-254 






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